A Little Birdy Told Me
by CheckAlexa
Summary: With John happily married and a baby at home, Sherlock realises that 221B has become far too quiet for his liking. Bridget Mason responds to the detective's advertisement for a flatmate. But with her comes a mysterious secret admirer, and his gifts are not something the citizens of London are prepared for at all. Set after HLV.
1. And So it Began

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

And So it Began

It was a relatively quiet afternoon in 221B Baker Street.

At least, if one were to count Mrs. Hudson arguing with a certain consulting detective for setting the kitchen table on fire with an experiment _yet again,_ quiet, then it was basically business as usual. For Dr. John Watson, this was definitely the case.

"-and just look at the state of the kitchen, Sherlock!"

"I fail to see the problem."

"You have toes in the refrigerator!" Mrs. Hudson cried. John watched her puttering around the kitchen, straightening up, whilst Sherlock followed right behind, undoing it all.

"Well," Sherlock snapped, swiping a beaker of heaven knows what out of the landlady's reach. "I could hardly leave them out— John would complain too much and they would decay far too quickly to be of any use to me."

John rolled his eyes at the last statement before turning back to his laptop. At his wife's insistence (read that as threats), John had decided to take the evening off from helping with the new baby and instead spend it with his childish best friend. He had been hoping for a nice quite evening, though he should have remembered that such an occurrence would never happen around Sherlock.

Deciding what he needed was a nice hot cup of tea to make it through the evening, John heaved himself out of his armchair and wove his way between the feuding Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson towards the refrigerator.

He had just opened the door and pulled out the milk carton when Sherlock broke off mid argument and said, "I'm out of milk, John."

John looked down at the carton in his hand, giving it a little shake, only to find that it was at least half-full. He glanced up at Sherlock, confused. "What do you mean? This is-"

"Not milk."

Knowing better than to check to see what the liquid was, John carefully placed the not-milk back in its spot before quickly washing his hands at the kitchen sink. After drying his hands on his jumper (there was no dish rags that he felt comfortable using), John went over to where his coat was hanging and pulled it on.

"Right," he said to no one in particular, "I'll just go down to the store then." When neither responded as they had continued their row, John trudged down the steps towards the front door. Maybe he should buy some towels as well as some milk? He opened the door and was just about to step out when he was punched in the face.

"Bloody Hell!" John said, grabbing his nose and stepping backwards.

"Oh my- I- I am sorry, sir! I was trying to knock on the door, but you oh- I'm so sorry." Cold hands wrapped around his wrist and pulled his hands away from his face. "Let me see, maybe I can help?"

John waved his apologetic attacker off. "No, it's alright, nothing broken," He said, straightening up to look at the person who had just punched him.

"Are you sure, sir?" The young woman before him asked, wringing her pale hands.

John gave a tight smile. "Yes, I'm a doctor."

"Oh." She shifted from foot to foot and tucked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear, obviously uncomfortable.

She couldn't have been more than twenty, John guessed, and had he not had a wife and baby at home, he probably would have made a flirtatious joke about her hitting on him.

"Can I help you?" John finally said after an awkward silence, figuring the woman wasn't going to start speaking.

The woman bit her lip and nodded. She reached inside the pocket of her black pea coat and pulled out a piece of paper with 221B written neatly across the top of it. "I'm here to see a Mr. S. Holmes?"

"Oh, a client then?" John stepped out of the way to let her enter. "Please, come in."

The woman looked slightly confused, but stepped in anyway and allowed him to lead her up the steps.

"Sherlock!" John called out, hoping that the consulting detective would pause his argument with the landlady long enough to actually do his job. "You've got a client."

The shouting stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Hudson scurried out of the flat, muttering under her breath about how the table would be going on his rent. She gave John and the woman a sweet smile, and said that she would bring up some tea for them in a moment.

John waved the woman into the sitting room and pulled out the chair for her to sit in. She thanked him and took the chair, though she looked more like she wanted to jump out the window then be sitting in it. Sherlock was nowhere to be found, presumably gone to change out of his dressing gown.

"So, uh, I never asked for your name," John said, hoping to break the uncomfortable silence. "I'm John, by the way. John Watson"

The woman squirmed in the seat, before answering, "Birdy Mason. Well, Bridget Mason, I suppose if you want to get technical about it, but I've always gone by Birdy." She pulled off her purple knit hat and began to play with the bobble on the top, refusing to make eye-contact with the doctor. Birdy reached up to pat down her hair as an afterthought, which had been standing up with static.

John thought that the name fit the woman in front of him— with her thin face, coltish body, and nervous energy, Ms. Mason reminded him very much of a baby bird.

John was spared from responding by Sherlock's entrance into the sitting room, fully dressed in a suit. "You have three minutes to explain. Give me facts. Don't be dull."

Birdy's eyes widened and she glanced at John in panic.

"Tell us about the case you want him to solve, and he will tell you if we will take it," John explained with a smile, hopping to calm the woman.

"I-I'm afraid I don't understand," she stuttered. "I think this has been a mistake." She stood abruptly from her spot and looked like she was about to make a mad dash for the door.

"Sit down please, Ms. Mason." Sherlock said, turning to stare at the woman intently.

John knew that look. He opened his mouth, but found that it was too late before Sherlock was rattling off deductions.

"Lifelong dancer, most likely ballet, with that posture. Left handed. Untreated generalised anxiety disorder and possibly OCD. Bookworm that doesn't get out much, mostly because of your anxiety disorders. Non-smoker and no perfume, so I'm guessing you have severe allergies, which explains why you own no pets, though now listening to your breathing pattern, I'm guessing you have a moderate to severe case of asthma. You play the cello, and John makes you uncomfortable, because you punched him in the nose."

John snapped his head towards the consulting detective. "How on earth did you-"

"Your nose is red, and I heard your conversation downstairs. It wasn't that difficult of a leap," Sherlock sneered. "Now, Ms. Mason, if you feel that I will be unable to help you, then please, do stop wasting my time."

"Ten out of twelve," Birdy said after a moment. "But that was very nice, sir."

"What?" It was Sherlock's turn to look startled. It wasn't as if he was used to being correct about everything with his deductions, but to have a person respond in such a way…

"Ten out of twelve of your observations were correct," Birdy responded, slowly inching her way back to the chair. "Well, really nine and a half, but I'll round it up. I have a pet fish, and my anxiety disorders are being treated."

John watched as Sherlock's face shifted from surprise to intrigue. If John hadn't expected the woman in front of them to grow a backbone, then Sherlock sure as hell hadn't either.

"And the last one?" Sherlock said, closing the distance between himself and the brunette until he was towering over her.

Birdy unfolded the piece of paper she had in her hands and turned it so that Sherlock could see it. "I found your message in the paper," she explained. "And I'm here to see about the extra bedroom here in 221B."

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	2. Birdy's Flight

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Birdy's Flight

Birdy massaged her foot as she tiredly watched the other members of the company cross the studio floor, chattering excitedly about the new choreography. Some days she really questioned her sanity when she decided that she wanted to be a dancer (the bleeding sores on her feet attested to that) but at least she had a real job on the side.

"Hey, Birdy," Walter said, collapsing on the floor next to her. He pushed his sweaty blond curls off his forehead before he began to take off his dance shoes, his feet looking only a touch better than her own. "I heard you made understudy for Swanhilda?"

Birdy nodded, allowing a grin to spread across her face. Her role in the upcoming production of _Coppélia_ had been a surprise, especially because she had been sleep deprived the day of the audition; not only had Sherlock set the fire alarm off _twice_ in one night, but Birdy had already been exhausted from long days at work. Adding that she had been cleaning her new flat so that it was fit for human habitation, it was a wonder that she was still walking.

"It's unfortunate that you didn't actually get the part, though. You would have been fantastic," Walter handed her a large plaster for her foot from the depths of his dance bag. "Then we could have danced together. Who knows, maybe we will still get the chance, eh?"

"Grace will do beautifully," Birdy replied with a shrug. "I'm just lucky to be here." Though Birdy had to admit that whilst she never wanted to wish for another person's misfortune, it would be nice to be the lead. Plus, with Walter as Franz, the two of them would have had a lot of fun.

Birdy allowed herself a brief moment where she imagined dancing across the stage, all eyes trained on her. She could imagine the swell of the music, the heat of the stage lights, the smell of the rosin on her shoes, and the heavy makeup that covered her body, so that she looked nothing short of perfect as she made her entrance as the young Swanhilda. The audience clapped wildly as she completed her first— No, Birdy realised, jolting from her daydream. She wasn't sure she could handle the pressure of being the lead. She had a full time job before ballet, and Birdy wasn't sure she really enjoyed the idea of the audience focused solely on her. No, the corps was exactly where she needed to be.

"What are you doing tonight?" Walter asked, holding the door of the studio open for her. "Do you have anything fun planned?"

"You mean besides hoping my flatmate doesn't poison my fish?" Birdy responded with a laugh. "I'm heading to the market before I hopefully get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I might even take a shower and change out of my leotard."

Walter looked slightly put out by this answer. "On a Friday night?"

Birdy shrugged. "After the week I've had, I think I deserve it." They stopped on the pavement outside the dance centre, for what Birdy guessed was so that Walter could hail a taxi. He didn't really seem like the type for public transportation. "What about you?"

Birdy only half listened to Walter's plans to meeting up with a couple of friends at a pub, more interested in the traffic that whizzed past. Maybe she was paranoid, but hadn't she seen that same flashy red car twice since Walter and she had been outside?

"Birdy?"

Birdy turned her head back towards Walter, who was getting into a taxi. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"I asked if you wanted a ride back to your flat," Walter said, looking worried. "Are you alright?"

Birdy waved away his concerns, forcing a grin on her face. "No, I'm fine. I was just thinking."

"Are you sure you don't want a ride? I don't mind sharing with you."

Birdy gave a breathy laugh and before assuring him that she would be just fine walking a few blocks to her flat. "It's not that far, really, Walter. Go have fun, and I'll see you Monday."

"Well, text me when you get back then, yeah?" He said, before sliding into the car and slamming the door behind him.

Birdy watched as the taxi pulled into oncoming traffic before setting herself on a course she knew would take her home, trying to put the red car out of her mind. It was probably lost. Or maybe it wasn't even the same car.

 _That car looked expensive. How many of those cars were statistically likely to be rolling around London?_ Her anxiety purred in her mind.

So maybe they got lost then. It happens all the time.

 _Car that expensive and the driver didn't have a GPS?_

Okay, then the driver was looking for somebody to pick up.

 _Yeah,_ the anxiety said. _They are looking for me. Probably want to take me to the docks where I will be thrown on a boat and be forced to become a slave on a pirate ship. Hope you like scrubbing decks, matey._

Birdy halted her steps at that thought. Did that even happen anymore?

 _Who knows? Do I really want to stick around long enough to find out?_

Birdy knew that it was unreasonable to be so worried about such things. It was just her anxiety. Nothing bad was going to happen. She was on a well-lit street. Birdy craned her neck around, counting the amount of security cameras. Six cameras, all potentially watching her. She was not about to be shanghaied in the middle of London.

But it didn't hurt to walk a little faster, Birdy conceded.

Pulling her dance bag closer to herself, Birdy resumed her walking at a slightly faster pace. She took some deep breaths exactly as her therapist had suggested, filling her silly thoughts away. What was she supposed to label them as again? This was either jumping to conclusions or catastrophizing, right? Either way, Birdy just wished her heart would stop beating so painfully in her ribs.

She was so focused on her thoughts, she didn't notice the car pull up alongside of her, nor did she notice the sound of a car door open. Birdy did notice, however, the hand that clamped down on her shoulder.

"Bridget Mason," the man before her said. There was no question in his words, as if he knew exactly who she was, which prompted a small squeak of surprise from her as she spun around to face her possible kidnapper. He was well dressed in a smart suit, with neatly trimmed hair, and a slightly crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken a few times. "Please get in the car."

Birdy looked to where the man had indicated, and saw that it was not the same red car she had seen on the street in front of the dance studio, but a sleek black sedan with tinted windows.

"Why? Who are you?" Birdy asked as she slowly reached into her dance bag and fumbled around for her keys which had a small can of pepper spray attached to it. Her mother had given it to her when Birdy had announced that she was taking a job in London a few months prior, and Birdy was reluctant to go anywhere without it. Her therapist thought it wasn't healthy to be so paranoid, but Birdy felt that it was better safe than sorry.

"Please, just get in the car, Ms. Mason," the man repeated, looking bored.

"And if I refuse?" Birdy asked, hoping her voice didn't sound as shaky to him as it did to her.

The man sighed, as if she was a phone call that had pulled him away from his dinner. "Then I have been instructed to make you."

Birdy was surprised by how calm she felt, given her track record with panicking at the smallest thing. Just last night she had broken down into tears when she saw that Sherlock had not taken out the trash like she had asked— she had overreacted about rodents invading the flat because of the squalor, though it had gotten her irritable flatmate to clean up to stop her tears— so it was odd that the anxiety hadn't left her in a sobbing heap. Maybe it was because her brain had been preparing her for the worst case scenario for years. She would have to ask her therapist if she made it out of the situation alive.

Birdy surveyed the man, noting his long legs and big muscles that showed even under his dark suit jacket. There was no way she could ever hope to outrun him and even less of a chance she could fight him off herself if he tried to force her into the car.

The man sighed again, apparently impatient that she wasn't following orders. He took a step towards Birdy, who skittered away, blood rushing in her ears. The man looked more irritated, and followed after her, reaching a hand out and grabbing onto the sleeve of her jumper.

Birdy's mind went blank except for one thought: she was not getting in that car.

Birdy had never had the best of luck, though she wouldn't go as far as to say that she was unlucky; things just never really worked out the way she planned. So it really didn't surprise her when she tried to pull her hand out of her dance bag with the pepper spray, her fist got caught in the opening and she ended hitting the man in the head with her dance bag. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but she had not only two pairs of pointe shoes (which really wouldn't have felt good) but the added weight of an arch stretcher.

With the combined force of her swinging fist and the contents of her bag, the man let go of her arm and stumbled backwards, clutching his head, and swearing spectacularly. Birdy nearly apologised for this, but remembered that she had been intending to pepper spray him anyways. She fumbled with her bag and managed to extract the canister, just in time for the man who, looking now incredibly angry, lunged at her. Birdy pushed the button on her canister and, just as instructed, aimed the pepper spray at the man's eyes.

The effect was immediate. The man dropped to his knees in pain, rubbing at his eyes with one hand, and waving the other one wildly in her direction. Birdy jumped out of his way, and watched the man for a split second, to make sure that he was properly incapacitated. Seeing that he was, Birdy skirted around the man and took off in a sprint towards her flat. When she noticed that the sleek black car had pulled away from the curb and was following after her, Birdy veered off the pavement and into the nearest alley.

Birdy ran down the alleyway, dodging bins and glass bottles until she reached the back of it, where a tall metal fence was at the end, far too tall for her to climb over. She looked over her shoulder, only to see that the car had stopped, and another man was getting out of it. Birdy noticed a skip that was sitting under a fire escape and quickly heaved herself onto it. The man was entering the mouth of the alleyway just as she scrambled up the ladder of the fire escape and began to run up through the twisting sets of steps.

Birdy wasn't sure where the man was by the time she made it to the top of the escape and clambered onto the top of the building, but she wasn't going to stop and check. She ran across the rooftop, pulling her mobile out from her bag and dialling 999.

"Emergency," a cool female voice said. "Which service?"

"Police!" She shouted, nearing the end of the roof. Birdy thought she heard a click as the call was transferred but it could have easily been her shin as it hit an air-conditioning unit, which sent her sprawling onto the concrete rooftop. She threw out a hand to brace her fall, the other clutching her mobile tightly. Birdy felt her palm sting as it crashed into the concrete and her tongue erupt in pain as she bit into it.

"Where is your location and what is your emergency?"

She pushed herself to her feet, aware of the burning of her lungs and the ache in her knees. "A man tried to force me into his car and now I'm being followed by another man. I'm on the roof of a building on Baker's Street, please help."

"Is the man near you?"

Birdy looked over her shoulder and noticed that the pursuer was not on the roof with her. Maybe he had given up, but she wasn't about to go check. "I don't see him," Birdy replied.

The police officer instructed her to stay on the phone with him. Birdy described the first man to the officer as she waited, and relayed the dramatic events of the evening to him in fuller detail. Eventually, two women dressed in paramedic uniforms appeared on the roof top and Birdy allowed herself to be led to the back of an ambulance on the street below, the sleek black car nowhere in sight.

Eventually, she thought to text Sherlock, asking him to come walk her back to the flat, but when he didn't respond, she accepted a kind policewoman's offer to drive her. Birdy barely heard the woman's chatter as they drove the short distance to 221B Baker Street, exhausted from the night's excitement, and wanting nothing more than to curl up in her bed.

But life, Birdy realised, could never be that easy, especially one lived with Sherlock Holmes.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she saw Sherlock sitting in his armchair, glaring at something across from him. Birdy wondered if he got her text and chose to ignore it, or if this was a night he happened to be organising his mind palace and hadn't heard the alert. Either way, Birdy decided that she was too tired to care, and would deal with it in the morning, and continued on.

"Bridget," Sherlock said suddenly, which caused her to pause, foot frozen in the air. "Please come in here."

Birdy sighed and trudged into the sitting room, only to pause when she realised that Sherlock had not been glaring at some _thing_ earlier, but rather some _one_.

"Ms. Mason," a well-dressed man said, sitting in John's usual chair. He was clean shaven, had slightly reddish hair, and a weak chin. "Please, sit. We have many things to discuss."

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	3. The Rude Not-Client

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

The Rude Not-Client

Birdy shifted from foot to foot, not sure what she should do. She could sit down, just as the man had instructed, but that hardly seemed like the best course of action, especially given the night's events. The other option was to turn around and go to her room (though wouldn't that be considered rude?) and lock the door. She might even get some sleep. But how would the stranger react to her leaving?

That musing brought on more questions, however, such as who was the stranger, and how did he know her name? Surely Sherlock wouldn't let a dangerous man inside their flat… right? Upon further reflection, Birdy wasn't entirely sure she knew how her newly acquired flatmate would respond to anything.

The stranger sighed and turned his attention back to Sherlock, a bored look on his face. "I thought you claimed she was intelligent, Sherlock."

Birdy felt her face flush at the man's words. Sure, she was no Ada Lovelace, but she was hardly unintelligent. Birdy opened her mouth and attempted to tell the rude stranger this, but no sound came out. She felt a knot form in her chest, spreading up towards her throat. Birdy bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She would not let this man make her cry.

Birdy saw Sherlock bristle in annoyance at the man's words. "As if I would have an unintelligent flatmate. She was the only one to answer to my advert in the paper."

"Ah yes, your advert," the man said, a small smile forming on his lips. "Your Vigenère cipher. A bit obvious, wasn't it?"

"Well you wouldn't give me access to an Enigma machine, so I had to make do."

Sherlock and the stranger began to argue, completely ignoring the still present Birdy. Perhaps the stranger thought that she was an idiot and wouldn't understand what he was saying. Or maybe the two men had forgotten that she was there entirely. Unfortunately for the stranger, however, she was neither stupid nor absent, and he had revealed a lot about himself.

First, the man was obviously intelligent. It had only taken Birdy a few days after seeing the cipher in her morning paper to crack Sherlock's advert, but by the sounds of it, the man had known what it meant very quickly. So obviously, he either worked for the newspaper and had seen the cipher earlier than she had, or he figured out the code himself.

There was no way he worked for the newspaper, he was too well dressed for that. Sherlock had also implied that the stranger had access to an enigma machine. People who worked for the paper wouldn't have one of the German cipher machines unless they were a collector, but that didn't seem very likely. Maybe the mystery man worked for the military?

Birdy glanced at the stranger. He was slightly overweight, and his hair wasn't as neatly trimmed as Birdy thought was permitted. So maybe not military. But he was definitely important, whoever he was. Important and very intelligent was hardly much to go on though.

He definitely wasn't a client. It was far too late in the evening for a consultation with the detective.

Birdy fought the urge to rub her temples so as to banish the headache that was forming. People were so confusing. She worked with computers just so she didn't have to deal with people for a reason. How on earth did Sherlock manage? She watched her flatmate bicker some more with the not-client. Why was he dealing with the man? If the man wasn't here for a case, then why was Sherlock being so… tolerant of the stranger? The day before, Sherlock had thrown out some girl who had apparently been a fan of his work claiming that she was wasting his time.

The only other people who Sherlock put up with were the Watson family and Mrs. Hudson. He was hardly a friendly person. Birdy wasn't even sure that he liked her all that much. Sherlock didn't have many friends, and those he tolerated weren't glared at like the man with the reddish hair. So who would Sherlock put up with? Birdy found the answer slipping out of her mouth before she had even finished her thought.

"Mr. Holmes," Birdy said, interrupting the bickering men. "I've had a less than fantastic evening. If there is no other reason for my being here other than to have you insult me, then I wish you a good night. Good night to you as well, Sherlock."

Birdy wasn't sure where she had summoned up the nerve to say that. Maybe she should apologise, that was a bit rude to say. Whoever Mr. Holmes was, Birdy doubted that Sherlock would appreciate her speaking to his family like that.

The surprised look on Mr. Holmes' face brought so much satisfaction to her, though. No, she decided, she was not going to let him have the last word. Heart beating in her mouth, Birdy lifted her chin, spun on her heel, and began to walk to the stairs before she could stutter out an apology. She had to remind herself not to sprint.

"There was, actually, Ms. Mason," Mr. Holmes said, his voice even.

Birdy halted at the door frame. There went her dramatic exit.

Birdy glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Holmes, exhausted from the evening's adrenaline rush and ready to be done with the conversation. "And are you going to tell me, or am I going to stand here all night?" Birdy wasn't really certain where all of the sass was coming from, but she decided that she liked it when she saw Sherlock choke back a laugh.

Mr. Holmes gave her a tight lipped smile that she recognised as something she usually gave people she didn't want to interact with. "I wanted to meet my brother's new flatmate. Coincidently, the same young woman who took down one of my men this evening. I must say, I was expecting someone less…"

"Scrawny?" Sherlock supplied, reaching over the side of his arm chair to pull his violin out of its case.

"Miniscule," Mr. Holmes finished. "You must understand, Ms. Mason, that the man you attacked was a- well, you don't need to know what he was. If I wanted to speak to you before, I most certainly want to speak with you now." The way Mr. Holmes talked to her, it almost made Birdy feel like she was five years old— like she was some naughty schoolgirl and he was the amused head teacher. Mr. Holmes was probably fifteen years older than she was, but Birdy was still an adult, and she found that she really didn't like the patronising way he was speaking to her.

Birdy caught Sherlock's eye as he watched her from the other side of the room, plucking the strings of his Stradivarius. He lift one of his eyebrows, as if to ask her what she was going to do.

Birdy ran her tongue over her teeth as she turned around to face Mr. Holmes. She slowly walked up to him, making sure to keep eye contact with him. Birdy was by no means a short person, but she was painfully aware how tall Sherlock's brother was as she stopped in front of him, far too close for the socially accepted distance between strangers.

Mr. Holmes didn't look uncomfortable by her advances, if anything, he straightened his back even more, as if he knew that her actions were a challenge of sorts. Birdy had seen the same look on the faces of her male co-workers every time she corrected their work. Lucky for her, however, the problems she faced working in a male dominated field had perfected her skills in manipulating those with a Y chromosome.

Birdy lifted her hand and stroked the shirt on Mr. Holmes' chest. "This is a lovely shirt. It explains why you didn't want to do the heavy lifting. I wouldn't want to ruin such an expensive shirt either."

 _Idiot, he's going to have me arrested for sexual harassment! Don't touch him._

But Mr. Holmes startled at her touch, bumping back into the arm chair behind him. Apparently, he hadn't expected her to actually touch him, and if Birdy was to be honest, she hadn't expected to do it either. Her anxiety was making it painfully clear on how horribly the situation could turn out.

"I'm a very important man. I don't have time to chase around scared little girls." Birdy was impressed by how steady Mr. Holmes' voice was. The last man she had tried this on still wouldn't look her in the eyes.

"So I've gathered, Mr. Holmes," Birdy replied, giving him what she hoped was a coy smile. "But what business does such an important man like you have with such a," Birdy ran a finger down his waistcoat, "unintelligent," she wound her arm around his back, "and minuscule," she rested her hand on his belt, "little girl like me?"

Mr. Holmes actually jumped when she pinched his bum.

 _This definitely counts as sexual harassment. I am so going to jail for this. Why did I think this was a good idea?_

Birdy was standing so close to Mr. Holmes that their hips were touching and she could feel his steady breath on her face. Besides his previous surprised movements, he gave no indication that he was uncomfortable by her actions. Mr. Holmes, it appeared, was indeed a difficult man to intimidate.

She sighed and stepped away, walking over to Sherlock's desk, she wrote her mobile number down on a spare piece of paper, and handed it to the man with the reddish hair. "I think that you will find calling me is just as effective as kidnapping, Mr. Holmes."

Mr. Holmes ignored the paper and stiffly pushed passed her towards the door.

"Wait, Mycroft," Sherlock called out in a flat voice as he continued to pluck his violin strings. "Don't leave just yet. We were having so much fun."

When they heard the door to 221 Baker Street slam, Sherlock rolled out of his chair and jumped over a pile of books so that he could get to the window. Birdy watched her flatmate while she dropped herself into the arm chair that Mycroft Holmes had vacated. She was shaking, both the rational and the anxiety-ridden parts of her brain yelling at her for acting so stupidly. Why had she done that? Just because he had ordered to have her abducted didn't mean that she could just do… whatever she had just done to him. There was no way-

"Well done, Bridget," Sherlock said, still facing the window. "I don't think I have ever seen Mycroft so agitated."

"You don't think he'll have me arrested, do you? I really can't handle going to prison. I only just got this new job and I really-"

Sherlock spun around to stare at her, his face a blank mask. "My brother is not foolish. He knows that all you have to do is say that he tried to have you abducted." He smirked and added as an afterthought, "Besides, it's mostly his ego you've damaged. I've done much worse things to him."

Birdy wasn't exactly sure how to reply to that. "Like what?" She finally asked.

Sherlock waved his hand as if to brush her question aside. "One Christmas I drugged him and stole his laptop full of government secrets. There was also the time when he was sixteen and I—" Sherlock cut himself off as he noticed something to her side. Birdy followed his line of vision and saw a black umbrella leaning up against the red arm chair.

"Is this your brother's?"

Sherlock's mouth twitched into a smirk. "I've never seen him go anywhere without it." He looked at Birdy, the hardness that usually filled his light eyes melting away. "You did a very good job at upsetting him."

Birdy ran her thumb over the carved wood of the handle. "How long do you think until he realises he has forgotten it?"

"Twenty minutes, at most. Why?"

Birdy pulled the wallet she had stolen out from the sleeve of her jumper. "I was thinking that Mycroft Holmes should donate a large sum of money to a woman's shelter. Think I've got time?"

Sherlock grinned at Birdy, an actual one that lit up his eyes, and made Birdy give a small smile back. He dropped his violin back in its case before grabbing his laptop and walking over top the coffee table to the sofa.

"I know just the place."

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	4. A Dozen Yellow Roses

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

A Dozen Yellow Roses

Birdy pushed open the door to the kitchen with her hip, wincing when the door made contact with one of the nastier bruises that she had earned in what was now referred to as the 'First Mycroft Mishap.' Birdy didn't particularly like the name, as it implied that more misadventures involving the elder Holmes brother would soon follow, but Dr. Watson had already written a blog post on it. Apparently, it was almost as popular as the 'Case of the Aluminium Crutch' or whatever the doctor had named it. Birdy had yet to read the blog written by Sherlock's former roommate, though, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to— the anxiety she felt reading fictitious mystery novels was sure to pale in comparison knowing that Dr. Watson's stories were actually true. Birdy pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and focused on placing the grocery bags she was carrying on the kitchen table.

That had been one of the hopefully many improvements that Birdy had brought to 221B Baker Street. Birdy had convinced Sherlock to put away his chemicals and plates full of bacteria cultures at the end of the evening. And by convincing, she really just hid his secret stash of cigarettes and refused to return them until he agreed. The scorched and stained wooden table was now hidden under a light blue tablecloth, scrubbed heavily after each use. Birdy thought Dr. Watson was going to faint when he first came over.

Birdy hummed to herself as she began to put away the food, her left foot beating out frappés on its own accord. She did a pirouette, grabbed the milk, and executed a small jeté towards the refrigerator, mentally crossing her fingers that there wouldn't be any body parts in it. There weren't, and with the crisis adverted, she placed the milk on a shelf and pirouetted once more to grab the lettuce she had purchased.

"Oh, that was lovely, dear!" The voice of her landlady said, causing Birdy to jump in surprise. "You know, I used to be a dancer too, back in the day."

Birdy took a deep breath to fight the panic that had begun to spread through her veins. It was just Mrs. Hudson, not some serial kidnapper. "Really?" Birdy asked, trying to keep her voice politely interested. "What kind of dancing did you do?"

Mrs. Hudson grinned, as if she had a naughty secret. "Oh, this and that. Mostly exotic dancing," she explain.

Birdy blinked, wondering if she had heard that correctly. "I hear pole dancing is great exercise," Birdy said finally. "Maybe you could give me some pointers?"

Mrs. Hudson winked then let out a giggle. "I've got something for you," Mrs. Hudson said, indicating to the large vase of a dozen yellow roses in her hands. "They were delivered this afternoon while you were at work."

"Oh, how beautiful!" Birdy exclaimed, relieving the landlady of the vase. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Hudson." Birdy placed the flowers on the table, not particularly caring if Sherlock would hate them. She felt that they really helped brighten up the room.

"It's no problem, dear," Mrs. Hudson replied. "Who are they from?"

"They're not from you?"

Mrs. Hudson drew nearer, her face eager, most likely hoping to receive the newest piece of gossip. "Oh, no. I don't like flowers. They make me sneeze," she explained.

Birdy pushed around the flowers, hoping to find a note of some sort, but came up empty handed.

"It's seems you've got yourself a secret admirer!" Mrs. Hudson squealed, clapping her hands together in excitement.

Birdy couldn't help but smile at her sweet landlady. She shook her head, turning to look back at the yellow roses. "I doubt it, Mrs. Hudson. They're probably from Mycroft. He's probably trying to apologise. I'll have to send him a thank you note."

"Yes, I would imagine he would need to, after what he did the other day." Upon seeing Birdy's confused face, Mrs. Hudson laughed. "I read about it on John's blog dear. Well, if you need anything, I'll be downstairs, alright?"

Birdy nodded at the woman and watched her disappear back down the staircase. Birdy wondered if her landlady was really a former exotic dancer. She would have to ask Sherlock, he would know.

The thought of her flatmate returned her thoughts back to the food on the kitchen table, wondering if he would like it if she made dinner for him as well. Birdy wasn't sure if she had even seen the man eat the whole time she had lived in 221B. That couldn't be healthy. Maybe she should make some food for him? Birdy looked down at the box of whole wheat pasta that she had in her hands and decided that it would be simple to make him a portion as well. What did Sherlock Holmes even like to eat?

She was saved the trouble of guessing when the hurricane she called her flatmate burst through the living room door, tossing his scarf and coat onto the sofa as he passed. He had his eyes glued to his mobile, his fingers flying across the screen as he danced around the furniture. Birdy watched from her position in the kitchen as Sherlock pulled out the chair at his desk, and sit down, opening up his laptop while he tossed his phone on the desk next to him. He began typing furiously, and Birdy hesitated, not sure if she should disrupt him.

 _He really won't like being disrupted._

But it's just a simple question. How much could asking him if he wanted any dinner hurt?

 _I could be kicked out of the flat! Nobody wants to live with an annoying person._

Yes, because Sherlock is the posterchild for the perfect flatmate.

Birdy sighed quietly, and walked over to where Sherlock had flung his coat and scarf, hanging it up on the coat rack. She heard the door to 221 open and slam shut. There was only one person Birdy knew who could slam a door like that.

"Sherlock," Dr. Watson's voice called from below. "If you could stop running off like that, that would be fantastic." Birdy heard the doctor start up the stairs, and she scurried back into the kitchen. Whilst the doctor had said that he harboured no ill feelings towards her despite their less than savoury first meeting, Birdy always felt a bit nervous around the shorter man. She reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a pot to make her dinner in. Sherlock was, what, in his thirties? He didn't need her mother-henning him.

Birdy listened to Dr. Watson shout at Sherlock, who seemed to be ignoring him. Apparently, Sherlock had run off whilst the doctor had gone to buy something for his daughter and Dr. Watson has spent the better part of an hour tracking down the consulting detective. Birdy filtered the doctor out, his loud voice causing her heart rate to accelerate.

 _He's yelling at Sherlock, stupid. Not me._

Birdy focused her attention on the pot of water in front of her. She added a pinch of salt and turned on the cooker. She grabbed a wooden spoon and began to count out beats, her feet tapping to music only she could hear.

"Are you even listening to me?" Dr. Watson shouted. Birdy jumped and spun around, her trance broken.

"Um, no?" Birdy responded, not sure if he was speaking to her or Sherlock.

Dr. Watson startled and turned to face her, evidently surprised that she was there. He must have been speaking to Sherlock. "Chr- Birdy what are- when did you get here?"

Birdy bit her lip and shuffled closer to the cooker. "Dunno, not too long ago."

Dr. Watson gave her a tight smile and entered into the kitchen. He glanced at the dozen of yellow roses on the table and chuckled a bit. "Ah, the feminine touch. Sherlock will love it."

Birdy shrugged her shoulders. "I think Mycroft sent them— but don't put that in your blog, or anything," Birdy added quickly. "Do you happen to have his address, Dr. Watson? I would love to send him a thank you card."

The doctor looked at her, confused. "Mycroft, as in Sherlock's brother Mycroft?"

"No, Mycroft Jones," Birdy deadpanned. How many other Mycroft's did the two of them know?

The light haired man smirked. "He's pretty popular with the ladies, I hear."

"He's ever so charming," Birdy replied, leaning over the boiling pot to stir in the pasta. "He doesn't even kidnap his brother's flatmates."

Dr. Watson chuckled. "I'm not sure, but I don't think Mycroft would even send his mother a bouquet of flowers."

Birdy shrugged. "I don't know, but they're pretty. Has he eaten today, Doctor?" Birdy asked, pointing her wooden spoon in the direction of the younger Holmes brother.

"You can call me, John, you know," Dr. Watson said. "And, I don't think so. He's been at St. Bart's all day, before Molly threw him out. Have you met Molly yet?"

"Er, no," Birdy replied. "I don't make it a habit of visiting the hospital. Can you get some plates down for me? Feel free to get one for yourself."

John complied, and got down three plates and began to set the table. "I think you would like her. I should introduce you sometime— outside of the hospital, of course."

Birdy silently agreed that that did sound like a lot of fun. She never really had much friends, and hadn't made many since she had moved to London. Besides talking to her friend Walter before and after dance rehearsal, Birdy didn't speak to many people outside of what was strictly necessary. While little human interaction was one of the perks of computer programming, it did get rather lonely sometimes. And a female friend could be very nice indeed, seeing as she was almost always surrounded by men.

"I would like that," Birdy replied finally.

John grinned. "I'll talk to her tomorrow, then. Now, what else can I help you with?"

Between the two of them, dinner was quickly served. Birdy called for Sherlock, though he continued to click away on his laptop. She wasn't sure if he was ignoring her, or simply didn't hear her, both of which John explained were very possible, so it was just the doctor and her who sat down for a simple meal of pasta and salad. Birdy apologised profusely for not planning for a bigger dinner, seeing as she wasn't planning making extra, and she didn't eat large amounts of food before dance rehearsal anyway, but John waved away her apologies with a grin and a joke about needing to eat healthier.

As it turned out, when Birdy wasn't accidentally punching the doctor in the nose and he wasn't shouting at Sherlock, John Watson was a very pleasant person to talk to. He spoke mostly of his family, something Birdy could tell he was rather content with, and some of his more mild adventures with the world's only consulting detective. Birdy mostly listened, happy to have some human contact that seemed just as content as her to lapse into comfortable silence from time to time. Birdy could easily see why the rambunctious Sherlock was drawn to the quiet presence of Dr. John Watson.

John and Birdy were just nearly finished with the washing up when they heard someone pound on the door to 221 Baker Street and after a moment, burst into the flat, calling for Sherlock.

A tall man with greying hair and wearing a dark overcoat burst into the living room. Birdy watched the man shake Sherlock on the shoulder after waving to John and her, continuing to call his name. Sherlock jumped and faced the newcomer as if he had not heard him come in.

"Yes, what is it?" Sherlock snapped, jumping up so that he could face the man better.

"I called you, why didn't you pick up?" The man asked. "Never mind, I've got something for you: a man was found dead, about an hour ago. Car crash."

"You know I don't concern myself with trivial matters, Lestrade," Sherlock told the man, brushing past him and walking to his violin case.

"Foul play expected, the breaks were cut–"

"Dull."

"A single yellow rose was left on the wind screen," the man called Lestrade finished.

Sherlock paused, bow in hand. He looked over his shoulder at Lestrade, an excited glint in his light eyes. He dropped his bow and spun around to face Lestrade once more, stepping a little too close for most people to be comfortable with in his excitement. "Go on."

As Lestrade told the consulting detective about the details of the case, Sherlock grabbed his jacket and scarf from the coat rack and waved for John to follow him. John shot Birdy an apologetic smile, thanked her for dinner, and took off after the two other men out of the flat.

It wasn't until the door downstairs slammed shut that Birdy unfroze from her spot next to the sink. Her eyes shot towards the vase of yellow roses sitting on the kitchen table and walked towards it on shaky feet. Slowly, she pulled the roses out, one by one.

There were only eleven.

Birdy got the distinct impression that Mycroft didn't send her the flowers.

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	5. Don't Cry Over Broken Laptops

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Don't Cry Over Broken Laptops

Birdy had always been good at math. There was something about it that just made sense to her. It was the same in every language, which was good because Birdy had failed abysmally at Spanish in secondary school. She also had always found comfort that there was rarely more than one answer in mathematics if she did everything correctly. It was one of the least complicated things in her life.

One of her professors at university had introduced Birdy to computer programming in her first year and, very quickly, computers became Birdy's second love. At university, Birdy found a group of students who were rather good at hacking into things, and had been welcomed into their little posse. She had never hacked into anything for malicious reasons (it was more of just as a challenge to see if she could do it, really) and by some miracle, she hadn't been caught by the authorities during her three-year stay at uni. Her friends had often poked fun at her because she had never used the same nickname for more than a week— according to them, hackers were loyal, and always stuck to the same nickname. She had always said it was better to air on the side of caution, and not get caught.

The joke was really on them, Birdy thought, logging into her computer at work. She knew that at least three of her friends were currently serving time in prison.

Perhaps their endless jesting had prompted her now permanent nickname: ALittleBirdyToldMe. Her boss wasn't entirely sure why she thought it was so funny, but she was good at what she did, so he usually left her to herself. Birdy took a deep breath before letting her fingers fly across the keyboard. Her job for the day was to test the security system of a local flower shop, owned by an elderly gentleman whose granddaughter was trying to get him to switch to electronic payment and what not.

A knock on the side of her cubicle broke Birdy's focus, causing her to jump in surprise. She spun around to face the source of the interruption, only to see one of her co-workers smiling shyly at her.

"Hey, Bridget," Joshua said, pushing his dark fringe back out of his eyes. "I was going to go get some coffee. Do you want anything?"

Birdy liked Joshua. He was one of the few people in her office that was not an asshole. Birdy was pretty sure he worked in the mail room or something because he often brought her the documents she needed, but just the other day, she had seen him walking out of a meeting with her boss, so maybe he was an intern. Either way, he was always sweet to her when they bumped into each other in the break lounge; Joshua often made tea for her, and even knew how many sugars she liked in her earl grey without her needing to say anything.

She glanced at the time on her computer screen, alarmed to see that she had been working for much longer than she had thought, and that it was nearly noon. Dr. Hooper had called that morning after getting her number from John, asking her if she wanted to meet up for lunch.

Birdy hopped to her feet and grabbed her pea coat from the back of her chair. "Maybe later, Joshua," she said, wrapping a scarf around her neck. "I'm meeting someone for lunch."

"Oh?" Joshua said, his voice curious. "Who?"

"I don't actually know the person, to be completely honest," Birdy explained, ushering the man out of her cubicle. "My flatmate's friend thought that we would like each other."

Joshua gave her a wan smile, "That will be fun. Do you know what he looks like?"

"No, but she said that she would be wearing a jumper with cherries on it," Birdy said absentmindedly. John really should have texted her a picture or something. What if she sat down at the wrong table; how embarrassing would that be?

"She?" Joshua asked, sounding surprised.

Birdy didn't get the chance to reply, however, because she felt something hot and wet running down the front of her coat. She hissed in shock, pulling the damp wool away from her body, her nose catching the unmistakable scent of coffee.

"I would apologise," the person who had just spilled his drink on her said. "But that would imply that I was actually sorry for something."

Birdy said nothing, instead pushing herself into the wall, hoping that Neal would pass by her without any further comments. She accepted Joshua's handkerchief and dabbed at the front of her coat, glad that the stain wouldn't show up on the dark fabric.

"You should have been watching where you were going," Joshua snapped. Birdy wished that he hadn't said anything. Joshua, though tall, looked a great deal like a stretched out noodle next to the well-toned Neal. It wasn't that big of a deal anyways. Birdy had learned from a young age that you had to pick your battles, and causing a scene at work was not an idea that she particularly relished.

"I wouldn't have had to if she just stayed in the kitchen where she belonged," Neal sneered.

Birdy was always a bit shocked and never really knew how to react every time she heard comments like Neal's. Usually she opted for silence, knowing that such close minded people were not worth her time. She tried to remind herself that Neal and other dicks like him were often threatened by her, but his words still hurt.

"Always a pleasure, Neal," Birdy said, handing the handkerchief back to a fuming Joshua. "I'll see you after my lunch break."

Birdy pushed past the two men and walked quickly towards the exit. She wasn't sure if her heart was pounding from anger or from anxiety, but either way, the walls felt like they were closing in on her and she really wanted to get out of the building. She did hope Molly wasn't going to be angry with her for being late.

Birdy checked the time on her phone. She was going to get there in plenty of time.

Unless of course the train she was on broke down. Or crashed.

That didn't even make any sense! Birdy continued to argue with herself as she made her way to the underground, weaving in and out of people on their lunch break and teens skipping school. Her ride to the Whitechapel station was uneventful for the most part, besides offering her seat to a heavily pregnant woman and texting Walter.

Birdy had asked him to film the rehearsal for the previous evening as she was feeling too anxious to leave the house. Walter, the saint that he was, had showed up a few hours later, a bottle of wine in one hand and her favourite movie in the other, and had listened to her talk herself hoarse. If it wasn't for Walter, Birdy doubted that she would have been able to show up to work today.

Birdy shuddered, pushing the thoughts of the yellow roses away. Walter was right, the roses were a coincidence— the missing rose was probably a mistake on the florist's part or something simple like that. Nobody was out to get Birdy. Sherlock, to her knowledge, hadn't returned to the flat, so she had no way of asking him his opinion on the matter, but she was positive that he would say the same thing.

'Why do I work with these misogynistic people again?' Birdy typed, after double checking that she hadn't missed her stop.

Walter was quick to reply, 'Is it that Neal prick, again?'

Birdy smirked at Walter's rather accurate description of her co-worker. 'Isn't it always? Thanks for last night, by the way.'

'As long as you never tell anyone about how well I know the songs to _Mary Poppins_ , I will always be happy to cheer you up.'

Birdy continued to send messages to her friend until she reached Whitechapel, where she hopped off the train and pushed her way up the escalators to the street above. It wasn't difficult to find the little café that Molly had suggested that they meet at, and she ordered a sandwich before grabbing a table by the window to wait for the doctor.

She glanced down at her phone, and noticed that it was nearly the time that she had agreed to meet Molly. So she was a little early, that wasn't a problem. Unless of course Molly had forgotten that they were going to meet up. Birdy glanced around the café, looking for a cherry patterned jumper only to find none. Or what if Molly didn't actually want to meet her? Why was Birdy even here? She hated talking to new people!

Birdy was beginning to think that she had made a horrible mistake when the little bell above the door rang, and a young woman wearing a cherry printed cardigan beneath a tan coat entered. The two locked eyes, and the woman smiled and made a beeline for Birdy's table. Birdy just hoped her face didn't look as panicked as she felt.

Molly Hooper dropped her purse in the chair across from Birdy and shrugged out of her coat. The doctor stuck her hand out, and Birdy shook it hesitantly.

"Sorry for running a bit late," Molly exclaimed, pulling a wallet out of her purse. "I was busy finishing up something for Sherlock."

"John mentioned you worked at the hospital?" Birdy asked, attempting small talk.

Molly hummed happily and nodded. "Yes, I'm a pathologist. I'll be back in a second." She disappeared to order her food, and Birdy had to resist the urge to bolt out of the café. Molly was probably a lovely human. There was no reason that she couldn't talk to the woman, right?

When Molly returned, they chatted about their jobs while they waited for their food to arrive. Molly was impressed that Birdy was able to manipulate computers ("I specialise in both getting viruses on my laptop and viruses that cause diseases!" Molly had proclaimed.), while Birdy wasn't sure if she should be fascinated or slightly disgusted by Molly's work with corpses.

"It's not bad, once you get used to it," Molly explained over a bowl of soup. "And Sherlock certainly keeps me busy when I'm not performing autopsies and what not. Like this morning for example— he was bothering me, waiting for me to finish up on the 'Steele case' as he likes to call it."

Birdy nodded. "So that's where he's been all day. He just disappeared last night and I haven't seen him since."

"Yeah, he does that a lot," Molly said with a laugh. "He left the lab earlier in a huff when I told him that Steele hadn't been poisoned, complaining that he would have to work with Anderson— have you met him yet?"

Birdy had the sudden realisation that Molly thought that she did what John did, and helped Sherlock solve crimes. Normally she would have corrected the error, vehemently refusing to know the plot of what would become John's next blog post, but at that moment, with Neal's misogynistic words in her mind, she found herself telling Molly that, no, she hadn't met Anderson yet, and after hearing Sherlock's ranting about the man, she wasn't too keen to do so. Maybe Birdy lied because she was curious to know more about this little mystery that her flatmate was so wrapped up in, or maybe she wanted to prove to both Neal and herself that women could do anything men could do. A part of her curiosity was undoubtedly due to wanting to know the identity of the man who had been found with the yellow rose, finally putting her anxiety about a possible connection to her to rest. In the end, however, it didn't really matter, because Molly had begun to explain all about the case Sherlock was so immersed in.

"Do you know his name?" Birdy asked when the pathologist took a breath.

Molly hesitated, and Birdy mentally kicked herself. Birdy guessed that Molly wasn't permitted to give the details to the case to anybody that was not directly involved. Maybe Molly knew that Birdy was lying to her, and was wondering how far Birdy would allow it. What if Molly was actually working for Sherlock's brother, and this was some sort of test? Oh God, was Mycroft going to make her move out of her flat because he didn't want a liar living with his little brother?

"Didn't Sherlock tell you?" Molly finally asked.

Birdy felt the lump in throat begin to dissolve. "No, I haven't seen him since last night." Birdy gave a small smile to the pathologist. "You know how he is; he probably just forgot to text me," she added on, remembering her flatmate's fondness of texting.

Molly seemed pacified by her words, the conversation was slowly directed towards Birdy's job. Birdy was in the middle of describing the time she had to hack into the private email account of a CEO when the alarm on her phone went off, signalling that her lunch break was almost over. Birdy was surprised how quickly the time had gone by, finding that she had been enjoying the doctor's sweet presence. The two women bid each other goodbye, Molly surprising Birdy by pulling her into a hug, and promising to meet up again soon for lunch.

Birdy was practically skipping when she returned to work. She smiled at Joshua as she waltzed by.

"How was lunch?" He asked, falling into step next to her.

"It was nice," Birdy replied honestly. "We are planning to meet up again soon."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joshua bob his head. "At least you had fun. I had to listen to Neal brag about… well, never mind. What are you working on?"

Birdy explained to the young man about her project while she walked to her tiny little cubical. What she saw, however, made her stop dead: water covered her desk, ruining everything it touched; papers were lying everywhere, some shredded, some soaking wet; Birdy's desk lamp had been smashed violently against the ground, coating grey carpet with fine shards of glass; framed photograph and nicknacks were crushed and strewn across the small space.

Birdy walked up to her laptop, trying to ignore the sound of glass crunching beneath her feet. The laptop was sparking and making alarming noises that Birdy hadn't known was possible from such a machine. All of her personal belongings were destroyed, and most of her notes for her current project ruined, by the looks of it. It was obvious that the person had wanted to ruin only Birdy's possessions, instead of company property, and had gone through a lot of trouble just to do so. Birdy glanced into the hall, only to notice that her cubical was in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras. Figured. That was simply her luck.

"That wanker," Joshua hissed, surprising Birdy, who had totally forgotten that he was there. "It had to have been Neal. He's been ranting about how you are taking jobs away from people. Is your project alright?"

Birdy found herself blinking back tears after the initial shock began to wear off. "It's alright," she said. "I wasn't too far into it." Birdy didn't sound too convincing to herself, and by the look on Joshua's face, he wasn't convinced either.

"Hold on," Joshua said suddenly. He disappeared around the corner of her cubical, and when he returned, he was holding a pot of purple flowers, the leaves and flowers covered in a protective plastic wrapping. "These came for you earlier."

"Thank you, Joshua," Birdy replied, her voice breaking.

He gave her a weak smile and placed the pot on her trashed desk. "I know it's not much, but maybe they'll help cheer you up? I bet they're from you lunch date."

Birdy let out a watery laugh. "That does sound like something Molly would do." She sighed heavily and rubbed at her eyes. "I better get to fixing this mess."

Joshua rubbed a hand on her shoulder in comfort. "If you need me, I'll be around."

Birdy nodded and slowly began to rearrange her desk, throwing away the ripped pieces of paper that couldn't be salvaged, and sweeping up the broken glass. She was positioning the flowers that Joshua had delivered, however, when she noticed an envelope taped to the side of the pot, her name written in neat script across the front. Birdy stuck her finger under the edge and quickly ripped the paper open, pulling out the letter.

 _I would be careful with the leaves on this plant— they are rather poisonous. Would it make you happy if I slipped some into his tea? Love, you know who._

Birdy reread the note three times until it registered in her mind what the words were actually saying. Her fingers went numb, and the paper slipped from her fingers, not that she noticed. Birdy wasn't even aware that she had stopped breathing.

All she could think was that Walter was wrong and that somebody was murdering people. For her.

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	6. The Waltz of the Flowers

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Waltz of the Flowers

Birdy was acutely aware of the fact that people were staring at her. She was, after all, sitting on a train in the middle of the afternoon, on the verge of hyperventilation. The other passengers were either curious or worried about her, but this was London, and talking to strangers on public transportation was something that you just simply did not do. Perhaps it was best that they didn't ask, Birdy thought. After all, how could she explain that there was a murderer running rampant in the city?

So instead, Birdy rubbed at her eyes with her jumper's sleeve, and focused on her phone in front of her, debating if she should text Sherlock. He was a detective after all— surely he would be able to help? Unless of course, he accused Birdy of sending the flowers to herself in some sort of ploy to deflect the suspicion away from her.

Catastrophizing. Sherlock was the world's only consulting detective. He wouldn't think she was a killer. Scotland Yard, however… No. Sherlock would help her. At least, Birdy hoped that he would. Besides, the police officer that had showed up to take her statement hadn't put her in handcuffs yet, so that was a good sign.

Birdy tried to comfort herself with this knowledge and worked up the courage to text her flatmate, asking if he was at home. The response came much more quickly than she had expected.

'Yes. –SH'

Her train stopped and Birdy pushed her way out of the carriage, making her way above ground before she sent Sherlock a new text. She tried to word her message mildly, as if she was just asking for a favour. She wondered if he would notice if something was off with her words.

'I was wondering if you could help me with something.'

'Does it have anything to do with the roses on the kitchen table? –SH'

Apparently, he did notice. She answered yes, and when she received no further response, she quickened her pace towards 221B Baker Street. Birdy knew that she had bumped into people in her haste to get home, but she never stayed long enough to apologise for her actions.

The moment she stepped inside the sitting room of her little flat, however, Birdy wanted to walk right out. Her once neat lounge looked as if… well, Sherlock had gotten a hold of it. Piles of newspapers were scattered across the floor, most of them shredded by her lunatic of a flatmate who was pinning an article to the wall. John was sitting at Sherlock's desk, pen in hand as he underlined something on a piece of paper that had obviously been taken from one of the tall stacks next to him. A ball of string was rolling under John's arm chair, rolling away from the wall every time Sherlock gave it a little tug and wove the end around one of his many pins, creating what only could be described as a web.

Her flatmate must have heard Birdy coming up the stairs because he paused and turned to face her the second she crossed the threshold. "Excellent, you're here." He dropped the string he was holding and, after brushing a file folder to the floor, sat down in his armchair. Sherlock steepled his fingers under his chin after indicating for Birdy to begin.

Birdy took a few hesitant steps into the room before perching herself on the edge of the couch. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart, then launched into her story. While she spoke, Sherlock gave no indication that he was paying attention until she explained why she didn't tell him about the roses after she had learned of the murder.

"I got the roses and I thought that it was just a coincidence that I got them the same day one showed up at your crime scene."

"Coincidences do not exist. There was one missing, how could you not notice?" Sherlock asked, his head snapping up. His light eyes scrutinised Birdy, as if he was trying to read her mind (though, to be fair, he probably was deducing her problems and knew what she was thinking). Birdy knew that she should feel relieved that he didn't think that she was the murderer, but the longer she sat under the consulting detective's gaze, the more nervous she got. Surely he wouldn't think she was an accessory to this murder, right?

"I did notice, Sherlock, but I thought it was just a mistake! People make mistakes all the time. Why should I jump to the conclusion that I'm somehow connected to a murder?" She glanced over at John, who had moved from the desk to his armchair, where he was watching Birdy with an unreadable expression. Birdy wound her arms around her body, as if her actions would somehow hold her panic in. Why would she be connected to a murderer? Those things just didn't happen in real life!

"So what changed?" Sherlock snapped. "You wouldn't be here in the middle of the day if you still thought this, so what happened?"

"I got another bouquet," Birdy replied. "Just now, at work."

"Why did you ignore the roses the first time?" Sherlock asked, springing up from his chair. He shuffled through his desk before procuring a pair of scissors.

"I thought they were from Mycroft," Birdy whispered.

"Mycroft?" Sherlock scoffed. He strode towards his web and resumed pinning up newspaper clippings. "Don't be idiotic."

Birdy felt disappointment ripple through her chest at his words. She knew that it was illogical to be hurt by Sherlock's words (after all, she barely knew the man), but Birdy had thought that the two of them were becoming friends. At the very least, she had assumed that he was beginning to respect her.

"Now hang on, Sherlock—" John began.

"Don't call me idiotic," Birdy said, jumping to her feet, temper rising. "I'm not stupid."

Sherlock dropped the paper he was holding and bounded towards her, vaulting over his armchair to reach her. He stepped so close to her that Birdy could feel the heat radiating off his body as he towered over her and she could smell the odd scent— something a bit like petrol, violin rosin, and a hint of lemons— that was unique to Sherlock Holmes. "If you were at least remotely intelligent, then you would see that my brother is hardly the flowers sending type. Even John could notice it."

Birdy heard John sigh heavily. "Thanks, mate."

"Now," Sherlock said, spinning away from her and storming back towards the wall. "Start from the beginning, don't leave anything out, and don't be dull."

Birdy scowled at her flatmate, not quite sure how to formulate a coherent sentence through her anger. "Don't you want to know why I thought your brother sent the roses?"

The consulting detective sighed heavily and began pacing across the room. "Because he tried to kidnap you and it is a common practice to send flowers to people you have upset. Don't try to be a detective, Bridget, it doesn't suit you. Now, con—"

"It's because they were yellow, you twat!"

Sherlock paused mid-step at her words. Slowly, he lowered his foot to the floor and turned to face her, eyes narrowed. "What does the colour have to do with anything?"

"Come on, Sherlock," John said suddenly. "You honestly don't know?"

Birdy watched the very frustrated consulting detective round on his best friend. The situation was obviously not a new one, as the doctor didn't seem even slightly intimidated by the closeness of the dark haired man. Instead, John looked up at his friend, not even bothering to stand up from his chair.

"Explain, John," Sherlock demanded, irritated that he was missing something.

John rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Yellow roses mean sorry. Or friendship. In this case, the sender probably meant both. She barely knows Mycroft, but she probably guessed he has more social graces than you. It was an honest mistake."

There was tension between the consulting detective and his blogger while Sherlock attempted to come up with a logical rebuttal to John's argument. After a moment, Sherlock sighed and turned to face the web on the wall.

"How many roses were delivered to you this time, Bridget?" John asked patiently.

"None," Birdy replied. She reached into her purse and pulled out her mobile and began flicking through the pictures until she found one of the purple flowers that had been delivered. "I got these instead."

John took the phone from Birdy, tilting the device so that Sherlock could see the photograph more clearly. "Why did you assume that these were sent to you by the same person?" John asked, glancing up at her. "Did Lestrade say there had been a new murder, Sherlock?"

Sherlock tore his gaze away from the mobile and regarded Birdy carefully. "What was different this time? You would not have connected the two instances otherwise."

Birdy scowled at her flatmate's rudeness. She might not be as smart as the consulting detective, but she was anxious, and her mind was always jumping to conclusions, whether a connection was present or not, which really could be helpful at times. Birdy was fond of saying that you weren't paranoid if you were actually right. "There was a note," Birdy replied. She watched the men's faces as they read the picture she had taken of the message: John's face melted into something that was halfway between horror and resignation, while Sherlock's lips split into a wide, somewhat manic, grin.

"Have you called the police yet?" John asked, handing the phone back to Birdy.

Birdy nodded. She suspected that she hadn't been much use to them between all her tears, because the police officer had sent her home with the promise that he would be in contact with her if he had any questions.

"Good. So the flowers were probably from the same person, right Sherlock?" John said, though both John and Birdy knew that the consulting detective had already guessed as much.

The man in question waved his hand in the air, his attention preoccupied by his mobile. He wandered over to the coffee table where he picked up a file folder and flicked through the sheets of paper. "How much do you know about aconite, monkshood, or wolf's bane, Bridget?"

Birdy glanced at John who shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "Not much." She watched her flatmate rifle through the file. "In _Harry Potter_ , Professor Snape says that they are all the same plant," Birdy said. "Other than that, nothing."

"Correct," Sherlock replied. "It's a genus of flowering plants that belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. Most species are extremely poisonous. Simply brushing against the leaves can kill you."

A metaphorical light bulb went off over Birdy's head as Sherlock's words registered in her brain. "That's what the flowers I got were."

"Obviously." The consulting detective began to flip through the file more furiously. "The post-mortem would only have registered it as asphyxiation, not as poison."

"Sherlock, the last victim died in a car crash," John said, "and there isn't another victim yet."

Sherlock ripped something out of the file and pinned it to the wall, the file dropping to the floor. "An accurate statement, John." When he stepped back, I could see it was a picture of a man with dark hair, his blue eyes slightly obscured by the thick black glasses he wore. "So what is the connection with the flowers? They can't be how he is killing them."

Birdy was sure that Sherlock had continued to mutter, but she had focused on the picture that had been pinned to the wall. "Who is that?" Birdy asked, her voice breathy.

"He was the first victim," John explained. "Last night, his car crashed. His name is—"

"Edwin Steele," Birdy found herself saying, her blood running cold. The two men turned to look at her, John, confused, Sherlock, pensive.

"How do you know him?" Sherlock demanded.

Birdy bit the inside of her cheek, trying to stop the impending anxiety attack. "He works… worked at the café around the corner. He knew everybody's order."

It was difficult not to love the charming barista, Birdy had learned shortly after discovering the little coffee shop. Eddie was studying to become a veterinarian, and while he was a bit of a flirt, he had never failed to brighten her day whenever she went to get her morning tea. They were even friends on Facebook.

"So," John began after a long silence. "Somehow, Birdy is at the centre of all this?" The doctor reached out and pulled a hyperventilating Birdy to him.

"Yes, but why?" Birdy heard Sherlock snap. "What's so special about her? Why is she worth killing over? And why the flowers?"

Birdy focused on the rumble of John's voice in his chest, rather than the words. She allowed John to rub his hand along her back as she focused on her breathing. She tried to convince herself that she was safe here with Sherlock. John too. That this was what they did. They solved mysteries for a living. They would figure this out.

A knock on the door pulled the three of them from their personal musings. Birdy glanced up and saw the grey haired detective inspector (Lestrade, her mind supplied), enter the room, his face grim.

"Where?" Sherlock said, noticing the newcomer's countenance.

Lestrade glanced at Birdy before answering her flatmate. "Just outside his workplace. Car accident: forensics thinks that the breaks were cut. We wouldn't have thought anything of it but there was a purple flower left on the windscreen. Do you think that it is connected to the Steele case?"

Birdy watched as Sherlock's face split into a grin that was borderline manic. He brushed by the Detective Inspector with little more than a "Come along, John," before he was out the door.

 **(A/N: Hi there! Thanks for reading my story. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	7. Don't Flirt With Birds

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Don't Flirt with Birds

"Here, you go, dear," Mrs. Hudson said, handing Birdy a cup of tea. After Sherlock had left, John had taken her down to her landlady, explained that Birdy had had a rough day, and was in need of company. The elder woman had embraced the anxious Birdy and promptly shoved a tray full of still warm biscuits at her. "Can I get you a blanket? You are still looking quite pale."

"No, this is wonderful, Mrs. Hudson," Birdy replied, lifting the cup to her lips. She choked a little when she swallowed, surprised by the unusual burn she felt in the back of her throat. "Did you put –"

Mrs. Hudson gave a little laugh at the younger woman's reaction. "I thought you could use a bit of a pick me up as well."

Birdy had to smile at her landlady's antics. "Yeah, this will definitely do the trick."

Mrs. Hudson patted Birdy's hand before she began bustling around her flat, making what appeared to be more baked goods. Birdy considered standing to help her, thinking that doing something with her hands might help take her mind off of her current situation, when her mobile alerted her that she had a text.

'Where are you? Are you alright?'

It was from Walter. Birdy wondered what prompted his concern. She checked the time on her phone, and noted that it was around the time she usually got off work. Was she supposed to meet up with him today? She responded that she was fine and was at home. When she inquired as to why he wanted to know, he told her that he was at her office.

Birdy stared at his words in confusion. She wasn't aware that Walter knew where she worked. 'Why?'

Before Walter replied, however, she got another text, this time from Sherlock.

'What is your connection to Neal Gates? -S.H.'

'I'm outside your office right now and the whole area is blocked off. The police aren't letting anyone through, except for this tall prick in an overcoat and a little blond man.'

Panic began to seep through her body while she processed Walter's words, freezing her in her seat. Birdy reached out a shaky hand and took a large swig of her alcohol infused tea. No, this was a coincidence. Right? Birdy could practically hear Sherlock scolding her about her optimism.

She told Sherlock that Neal was a co-worker.

Walter didn't seem to be bothered by Birdy's lack of responses and continued to keep up a stream of commentary about what he was witnessing. 'Bloody hell, I think I see a body bag.'

Sherlock's response came moments later, concise and without any sort of emotion. 'He's dead. –S.H.'

"Mrs. Hudson, do you think I could have some more of that brandy?"

A Little Birdy Told Me

Sherlock found Birdy in the lounge a few hours later, playing a concerto on her cello. She rarely played when she knew other people could hear her, but her anxiety was too great to simply sit around and wait for her flatmate to come home. The smell of her cello did wonders to calm her down, and by the time Sherlock had walked into the flat, Birdy had managed to stop crying and was almost relaxed.

"So what are we going to do?" Birdy asked, not bothering to turn to look at who she assumed to be Sherlock. She focused her breathing and let her hands wander their way across her cello's fingerboard.

"You are going to do nothing," Sherlock said.

Birdy turned to face the consulting detective so fast that her bow created a discordant screech. "What do you mean? I have to do something. People are dying because of me."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned to look at the man hovering in the doorway. "That will be ten quid, Lestrade." Birdy watched with an open mouth as the Inspector Detective reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

"Why I even bet against you…" the greying man muttered under his breath. He entered farther into the room, sitting on the couch.

"You were betting on me?" Birdy snapped, her face warming with anger.

"Just your reaction. Geoff didn't believe me when I said that you were paranoid enough to think that this is your fault." Sherlock tossed his coat and scarf onto the couch before walking towards his computer, ignoring the indignant splutter Lestrade made when the clothes landed on him.

"It's Greg," Lestrade muttered under his breath. He turned to look at the still fuming Birdy. "To be fair, I thought John was simply exaggerating about you in his blog."

"Does all of London read that damn blog?" Birdy yelled at no one in particular before moving to put away her cello. She would need to talk to John about keeping her out of the posts.

"John claims all of England, but I doubt his drivel gets that much exposure," Sherlock replied, his fingers clicking away at a dizzying pace. "Regardless, we will need to have him limit your exposure in them from now on."

Lestrade most likely assumed that Birdy's confused expression was about Sherlock's comment, rather than the fact that the consulting detective had seemingly read her mind. "We think that you have a stalker, Miss Mason."

A cold wave of panic flooded through Birdy's body at his words. The room began to spin and the young woman lowered herself into the nearest chair. "That doesn't sound good," Birdy found herself saying through numb lips.

"But you will be safe. We think that this person is what is called an erotomanic stalker, which means that the stalker is under the impression that you are in love with them. The person is most likely a male, and probably someone you don't know very well. Maybe even a stranger. Now—"

"Wrong."

D.I. Lestrade rolled his eyes at Sherlock's interjection. "You said that it was erotomania."

Sherlock didn't look up from his laptop, his light eyes trained solely on the screen. "That's correct."

"Then what was wrong? I only said the—"

Sherlock threw his head back and sighed deeply. "I said that the stalker was in love with her. Not that she wouldn't know him. Honestly, what's the point of me speaking if you are not going to listen to me?"

Birdy listened to the men bicker for a moment as she focused on controlling her breathing. What would her therapist tell her to do?

"Miss Mason," Evidently the two men had finished their argument and had focused all of their attention on her. "The last two victims seem to be people that are connected to you. I understand that you didn't get along with Neal Gates, though."

"Yeah, he is a dick," Birdy nodded before she realised what she said. "I mean, he's dead. I really shouldn't be talking about him like that. I'm sure he had some stunning qualities. I just never saw them. Or at least I never recognised that I saw them! He had to be good with computers, though, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten hired."

Sherlock waved his newly acquired ten pound note and grinned wolfishly at Lestrade.

Lestrade sighed heavily and looked back at Birdy. "Who knew about your problems with Mr. Gates?"

Birdy sighed. "Besides everyone in the office, you mean? Neal wasn't exactly subtle when it came to showing his displeasure with me." She focused on her fingers, aware that she was picking at the skin on her cuticles, but she couldn't bring herself to stop. "Joshua and Neal got into an argument today before lunch after Neal dumped his coffee on me."

"What is Joshua's last name?" Lestrade asked. Birdy could see out of the corner of her eye that Lestrade had pulled out a little notebook and had begun to write in it.

"I'm not sure. I think he's an intern or something. We don't really use last names in the office." Birdy looked up quickly at Lestrade, realising how her statement had sounded. "But Joshua couldn't hurt a fly. He didn't do anything. He was with me after my cubicle was trashed. He even brought me…well, he delivered the flowers. He never said where they came from. But he wouldn't hurt anyone."

Lestrade held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. "I'm not accusing anyone Miss Mason. I am just trying to understand how everything fits together."

Sherlock gave a snort of derision, which both Lestrade and Birdy ignored.

"Have you ever had a problem with Edwin Steele, Miss Mason?" Lestrade asked.

Birdy thought back to the few months she had been living in London, trying to remember when she had first met the flirty barista. "I don't think so. He was always so kind to me."

Lestrade continued to scribble away in his notebook as he asked, "When was the last time you had seen Mr. Steele?"

Birdy let out a puff of air, as she leaned back into her seat. "Oh gosh, I dunno."

"It was 17 days ago," Sherlock said. The other occupants of the room turned to look over at the consulting detective, who had at some point wandered over to his laptop.

"Now you're just making stuff up," Lestrade groaned in annoyance. "How the bloody hell could you know that?"

Birdy had to wonder if Sherlock was also stalking her. That did seem like something he would do. His brother was certainly good at it. Birdy shivered as she thought about what Sherlock could have possibly witnessed. Had he put cameras in the bathroom?

"John wrote about it in his blog," Sherlock said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Which is precisely why we need him to limit what he mentions about her. The stalker is obviously getting some of his information from it."

Lestrade walked over to Sherlock and began to read over his shoulder. "Some of it?"

"Yes, he's getting the rest from Bridget somehow."

"From me?" Birdy asked in surprise. Surely she would have remembered talking to a stalker, right? Well, maybe not, if they were really good, Birdy guessed.

"Are the two of you going to just continue to repeat everything I say?" Sherlock snapped. He turned his laptop towards her so she could see what he was reading. Birdy rose from her chair and walked over so that she could read the screen.

 _The First Mycroft Mishap_

 _Sherlock's got a new flatmate now. Her name is Birdy. She's a sweet girl, if not a touch anxious, and will definitely be good for Sherlock to live with. I just hope he doesn't drive her to insanity. I thought I walked into the wrong flat yesterday because she had somehow managed to clean it. She even has him put away his microscope._

 _The three of us went to a little café around the corner from Baker Street. Birdy was apparently reluctant to leave Sherlock's side after a run in with his older brother, and seemed spooked by pretty much everything: she just about fainted in terror when the barista flirted with her whilst taking her order. Sherlock was on his phone the entire time and left Birdy to explain on her own. From what I gathered, Mycroft had made an appearance at 221B, with the intention of intimidating Birdy, but it seems that the normally nervous woman can grow a backbone: she was able to even convince him to make a generous donation to a nearby women's shelter. I'm not sure how she managed that, but I do know that I could use her next time my clinic needs to do a fundraiser!_

Birdy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. "He put my name in it?"

Sherlock's annoyed sigh startled Birdy. "That's the only thing you got from that? Are we even reading the same thing?" At both Birdy's and Lestrade's blank looks, Sherlock jumped to his feet and began to pace the room. "The flirty barista, Bridget. That was Steele. John thought that I wasn't paying attention to anything that day, but I was really just ignoring your boring conversation. Your stalker obviously read John's blog and decided that Steele was threatening you, and decided to eliminate him."

Lestrade shook his head in confusion. "But Sherlock, the blog doesn't mention Steele by name, so how—"

"You are aware that your brain isn't just for decoration, right? Bridget obviously had to have mentioned it to the stalker, or he had seen it happen before. Bridget, who else do you go to that coffee shop with? You know what, never mind. The two of you will only slow me down." Sherlock snatched up his laptop and jumped into his chair, putting an end to their discussion.

Birdy and Lestrade stared at the hunched form of her flatmate in stunned silence before the detective inspector turned towards her and gave her a sheepish smile.

"I'd better get going, then," he said. Lestrade fished around in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a business card, which he handed to her. "If you think of anything else, please, give me a call."

Birdy nodded and took the card from him before showing the detective inspector out of the apartment. After making sure that the front door was securely locked, Birdy began to make her way up the stairs to her bedroom, planning on hiding under her covers and pretending that this was all a nightmare.

"Stop," Sherlock's voice said.

Birdy peered around the threshold into the living room, where Sherlock was still madly typing away on his laptop. "What's wrong?"

"Stop blaming yourself."

"People are dying because of me," Birdy said, rubbing the sleeves of her jumper in between her fingers. She trained her eyes on the floor in front of her, following the grain of the hardwood floor in an attempt to distract herself.

Her flatmate scoffed, causing Birdy to look up at him in surprise. "Don't be so vain as to assume that you are the cause of this, Bridget." He was watching her with unnerving expression on his face, and Birdy found herself looking down at the floor again. "The only person who is to blame is the stalker himself. You are nothing more than a victim."

Birdy hovered for a moment before nodding to her flatmate and continuing up the stairs. Sherlock hadn't said much, but for some reason, it was exactly what she needed to hear. Birdy smiled as a warm feeling spread in her chest, glad that she at least had Sherlock Holmes on her side.

 **(A/N: Hi there. It's been a while, hasn't it? Thank you all who continue to follow this story and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! If you haven't read my story in a while, I made a few changes in the previous chapter (The Waltz of the Flowers) because I wasn't really a fan of how it ended. It doesn't make much of a difference to the narrative, but I felt that the old ending of the last chapter was not very helpful for the characterisation of Birdy. Thank you for the reviews, they really mean a lot to me. If you liked the chapter, tell me in the comments. If you thought something could be improved, also leave me a comment. Basically, leave me a comment! –CheckAlexa)**


	8. Swan Song

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Swan Song

The tone of the changing room was one of excitement. The dancers of the London Fog Dance Company were less than a week away from the open night of their production of _Coppélia_ and the company was hard at work putting the final touches on everything. The choreography had been learned, the set was complete, lighting cues were added, and none of the dancers had been injured so badly that they would not be able to perform by opening night. Overall, it was one of the smoothest preparations that the dance company had had for a production in years. There was one dancer, however, who was not as optimistic about the production.

Birdy sat on one of the benches in the corner of the dressing room, sewing on ribbons to her pointe shoes and watching as the other company members chatted with each other. One of the senior members mentioned that they would be doing a dress rehearsal, and it seemed that their costumes were the only thing that the girls were able to discuss. Birdy thought that they should be discussing the two unsolved murders that had both Scotland Yard and Sherlock Holmes scratching their heads in confusion. There had been a review of all of Birdy's friends and co-workers, and Birdy herself had had her phone and personal computer taken and scoured for information. Still, nothing had come out of the investigation, and Sherlock was growing more irritable as time went on.

No, those had happened over two months ago, Birdy reminded herself. Not everyone worried about things like that. Then again, they didn't live with the only consulting detective in the world, who was incidentally convinced that the murders were done by Birdy's stalker. Sherlock had mentioned the previous evening how it was only a matter of time before the next murder was committed, and Birdy had silently agreed with her temperamental flatmate. Things were going far too smoothly in her life at the moment, and she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Did that count as catastrophizing? Birdy would need to ask her therapist at her next session.

"Hey, Birdy!" Someone called, rising above the chatter. The woman looked up at the speaker who was wading towards the bench on which Birdy had perched herself. "You have been summoned to the costume room."

Birdy nodded in thanks and offered a small smile to the young woman who had taken Birdy's spot as she rose to leave. After tossing her shoes into her dance bag, Birdy wove her way out of the changing room and into the hall, dodging dancers who were already warming up for the evening's rehearsal. Upon entering the room, the seamstress instructed her to put on her corps costume. Birdy found herself being pushed behind a changing curtain after a costume was shoved into her hands.

"Hey, Birdy," Grace said, smiling over her shoulder at the girl who had joined her. "Could you hook me up?"

Stepping forward, the young woman began fastening the back of the costume up, her fingers barely touching the bodice. Though playing the peasant girl Swanhilda, Grace looked nothing short of royalty in her costume. Factoring in the vivid red colour of the costume only insured that the audience would be unable to take their eyes off the lead of the production.

"Are you nervous about tonight?" Grace asked when she turned back around.

Birdy shook her head. It was only a dress rehearsal, after all. Even if things did go wrong, it wasn't like there was an audience that would throw rotten tomatoes at them. That worrying would be reserved for actual performances. The again, this had been such a smooth production so far. What if the curtain broke and fell down on dancers: those things must weigh at least a hundred kilo. Or what if a light exploded and the stage caught on fire?

Why did she have to think that? She probably jinxed the entire performance! Birdy looked around the dressing area nervously, hoping to see some wood that she could knock on.

"It's a shame that they aren't going to let you at least dance Swanhilda for the matinee. You look adorable on the stage," Grace said, walking around behind Birdy so she could fasten the back of the young woman's tutu. "I'm so glad that the company took you this year. You really bring something incredible to each performance."

Birdy felt herself blushing. "You are too kind, Grace. I'm just lucky to be here."

Grace giggled and rubbed Birdy's shoulder. "And you are far too modest." Grace held the curtain open for Birdy and the two stepped out of the changing area. Immediately, the seamstress pounced on Grace, checking the fit of her costume. "Who knows, maybe next time you'll take my spot as the principle dancer? What do you think, Walter?"

Birdy turned and noticed that her friend had entered the costume room from behind another curtain. "You should definitely start watching your back, Grace," Walter replied with a smirk. "I don't think you'll have much time on stage now that we have Birdy."

Grace threw her head back and laughed loudly. "You're probably right there, Walter." The principle ballerina executed a small jeté as she left the costume room. "I lost my water bottle earlier and I have a feeling I'm going to want it today," Grace called over her shoulder as shechasséd down the hall. Birdy giggled whilst watching a terrified looking dancer flatten herself against the wall as Grace leaped by.

"I think you could do it, you know," Walter said, pulling Birdy's attention from the retreating ballerina. "You could be the principle dancer."

Birdy shook her head and gave him a tiny grin. "You look handsome in your costume."

"Even in my red tights?"

"Especially in your red tights," Birdy said with a laugh. "There has never been a better looking red-tighted Franz."

Walter tapped the tip of her nose. "That's not even a word, you loon."

Birdy shrugged and backed out of the costume room. "I'll see you later, Walter."

Walter grinned wolfishly and gave her a mocking salute, despite the seamstress scolding him for moving. "I look forward to it."

~A Little Birdy Told Me~

Birdy cursed herself for not finding a piece of wood to knock on as the company reset the scene for the 8th time. To put it simply, the dress rehearsal was not going well.

It started off when Walter missed his first cue and slowly devolved from there. The stage lights were malfunctioning, the musical tracks were skipping, and dancers were falling out of their turns at an alarming rate.

Grace wasn't immune to the disaster either. In fact, she was flushed and looked to be on the verge of tears. At one point, Walter had lead her off the stage so that she could get a drink of water and get fresh air. Even when she had returned, she was red faced and out of breath. Birdy could hear the corps members discussing the principle dancer's unusual performance in hushed tones as they reset the same scene yet another time, and Birdy had to agree: even though she hadn't known Grace for as long as some of the other company members, the principle dancer hardly seemed like the type to completely fall apart in a dress rehearsal.

Birdy's suspicions were confirmed when Grace collided with another dancer and fell in the middle of the second act. She was instantly swarmed by dancers and crew members, and the artistic director could be heard yelling over the growing din to give Grace breathing room.

"I'm fine, I just need a moment," Grace murmured, swaying slightly, despite the fact she was sitting on the ground. Even standing at the back of the crowd of dancers, Birdy disagreed with that assessment. Grace was most certainly not fine. Birdy could see that Grace was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and when she reached out to accept her water bottle from another dancer, her hands trembled so violently that Birdy was afraid that she was going to drop the bottle.

"Like hell you are," Walter snapped, loosening the back of Grace's bodice so that she could breathe more easily. "You can barely stand." Grace mumbled something about her needing to finish the rehearsal, Walter sighed angrily. "You are obviously too sick to continue tonight, Grace."

The artistic director helped Grace take another small sip of water. "We have an understudy for a reason. She'll take your place tonight, and you are going to go home. Who is your understudy?" The artistic director looked around at the other company members.

"I am," Birdy said, timidly raising her hand, though both actions were unnecessary. The circle that had formed around Grace had opened, forming something like a tunnel, with Birdy at the end. She grit her teeth and tried to block out the whispers that began to sweep throughout the corps.

In something like a dream, Birdy was told that she was to help Grace backstage and then change into Grace's costume. Birdy felt her legs moving, though she wasn't quite sure how she had managed the action. Grace's sweaty arm was wrapped around Birdy's shoulders, the two stumbled their way towards the changing room, a feat made difficult when it became apparent that Grace was unable to walk in a straight line. At some point Walter joined them, though his addition hardly made the journey easier. When they reached the woman's changing rooms, Walter pushed the door open, and asked Grace if she wanted him to go inside. Grace seemed too disoriented to respond, but Birdy nodded in affirmation.

The two of them managed to sit Grace down on a bench. Walter went to work unfastening Grace's bodice whilst Birdy kneeled and began to remove Grace's pointe shoes.

"I think I'm going to vomit," Grace said, her words coming out slurred.

"Let's get you out of your costume first, then you can vomit all you want," Walter replied, helping Grace take another sip from her water bottle. Up close, Birdy could see that little leaves were floating in the water.

"'s not minty," Grace muttered, pushing it away. "'s bit-bit-bitter."

Birdy looked up at Walter in confusion, but the man only shrugged before he began to lift Grace so that Birdy could remove the costume. "I think it's the fever."

But the odd thing that Birdy noticed when she slipped off the outfit, however, was that Grace felt anything but feverish. In fact, she felt slightly cold. Birdy watched Grace closely as Walter helped dress her into her street clothes. What kind of illness would give Grace such severe symptoms without a fever? Certainly not the flu or pneumonia. She reached down and grabbed Grace by the wrist— she could feel Grace's pulse, which felt erratic and… weak?

Something clicked in Birdy's brain when she jumped backwards to avoid Grace's vomit. There was one thing that made sense. If Birdy were a less anxious woman, she wouldn't have bothered to look up the symptoms. And people told her that her anxiety was never going to help her. Birdy reached down and picked up Grace's water bottle. Over the ringing in her ears she could just hear Walter yelling for someone to call an ambulance.

"Don't drink that, she might be contagious," Walter warned, lowering Grace onto the bench when she had finished being sick. Birdy tore her eyes away from the green leaves in the bottle and glanced over at Walter.

"Trust me, I wasn't planning on it."

~A Little Birdy Told Me~

Grace Harmon passed away early the next morning. She was 29 years old.

Detective Inspector Lestrade came to 221B Baker Street to personally deliver the news. "We don't know if her death was related or not to the others—"

"It was," Birdy said tonelessly, staring into her cold mug of tea.

"We don't know that yet, Ms Mason."

Birdy wished that she could scoff at the suggestion, or at the very least have Sherlock do it for her. But Sherlock was out playing detective and she couldn't find the energy to do so much as to look up at the greying man.

"Did you receive any flowers this time before it happened?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

When Birdy looked up at D.I. Lestrade, she noticed he was giving her what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. "That's good then. That probably means that the stalker is gone. Mrs Harmon's death was merely accident—"

"Grace was murdered, Detective Inspector Lestrade." Birdy snapped, slamming her untouched mug of tea on the coffee table in front of her. "She was killed by Monkshood leaves that had been put into her water bottle." The same water bottle they all had kept forcing her to drink out of. "Which is incidentally the same poisonous plant that happened to be sent to my office right before my co-worker was killed."

"Ms Mason, the other victims were killed in car accidents after their brakes had been cut. It's a tragedy that your friend died, but it was just a—"

"Do not say coincidence," Birdy said. "They don't exist."

"The universe is rarely so lazy," came Sherlock's voice from the door. Birdy and Lestrade turned and watched as he walked in, removing his overcoat. Sherlock hung up his coat and scarf before walking over to the coffee table to pick up Birdy's tea. "This isn't poisoned, you know."

"I am aware. I just didn't want any tea."

Sherlock levelled a look at his flatmate which clearly said that he didn't believe her. "I've just been by your dance centre," he stated before taking a sip of the cold tea. "I didn't find any flowers there."

Lestrade gave a triumphant smile. "See, I told you. It's not your stalker."

Sherlock sighed. "Wrong."

The detective inspector turned to face the tall, dark haired man. "What do you mean? The M.O. was totally different from the last murders. There's no way that this was related."

"That was out of necessity. Grace Harmon didn't have a car. She couldn't even drive, apparently," Sherlock explained. He placed the mug of tea back on the coffee table before turning towards his leather arm chair. He jumped onto the seat and squatted on it, staring off into space. "It's rather difficult to kill someone in a car accident when they take the train every day, don't you think?"

Lestrade sighed and dropped onto the couch next to Birdy. "Fine. Let's say that you're right—"

"I am."

"Let's say that the stalker did kill Mrs Harmon. Why didn't Ms Mason get any flowers beforehand, as she had done the previous two murders?"

Sherlock waved his hand around to dismiss the idea. "She did. She just hasn't found them yet."

"Wouldn't it be difficult to miss a bouquet of flowers? They would be bad at warning her of someone's impending death if she couldn't find them."

Lestrade's words appeared to have struck a chord with Sherlock. The consulting detective put his feet on the floor and leaned back in his chair. "A warning?"

Lestrade tilted his head as he watched the younger man in apparent confusion. "Well, yeah. They always come right—"

"Or a message?" Sherlock continued, as if Lestrade hadn't spoken. Sherlock turned towards Birdy and regarded her with curiosity. "Yellow roses mean friendship."

Birdy stared at her flatmate. "Are you saying that one of my friends did this?" The only problem being, Birdy thought, was that she didn't have many friends. The ones she did have had already been investigated by the police.

"'Yellow roses mean friendship.' That is what you told me when you received the first set of flowers."

"And what is the point, Sherlock?" Lestrade snapped.

Sherlock turned his attention away from his flatmate to look at the detective. "I wonder what Monkshood means." In an instant, Sherlock whipped his mobile out of his pocket and began typing on it. "Bridget, go check your room. The flowers are probably there."

"Now hold on a minute. Don't you think—"

Birdy didn't stay to hear the end of Lestrade's sentence. She raced up the stairs to her bedroom and looked around, searching for something out of place in her orderly room. Her eyes shifted from her closed wardrobe, to her desk where her laptop sat, to her made bed. The only thing that looked remotely out of the ordinary was her dance bag on the floor where she dropped it the previous night. Surely she would have noticed a bouquet of flowers in her room this morning as she got dressed?

Her eyes flicked back towards her dance bag. She hadn't noticed anything last night, had she? Then again, she had been so stressed out the night before that she probably wouldn't have noticed a naked Mycroft Holmes drinking tea in her kitchen. Birdy stumbled towards the bag and opened it up.

The smell of sweat and dirty dance shoes wafted up at her, but she hardly noticed. Because sitting in the bottom of her bag, wilted and crushed, was a bundle of yellow flowers.

 **(A/N: I actually ended up really liking Grace after I finished writing her, so I was a bit sad when I had to kill her. Such is the life of a writer. Anyway, I hoped that you enjoyed the chapter. Thank you all so much for your reviews. I love hearing your theories about what is happening, so keep telling me! Until next time, CheckAlexa)**


	9. When Flowers Speak

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

When Flowers Speak

Birdy had to resist the childish urge to stick out her tongue at D.I. Lestrade and say 'I told you so' when she re-entered the lounge with a bouquet of dandelions. Sherlock, however, seemed to have no such inclination and did it for her.

"Honestly, how do you keep your job, Lestrade?" Sherlock said, waving the flowers he had snatched from Birdy in the detective inspector's face.

Lestrade merely rolled his eyes and swatted the bouquet away. "Okay, fine, but what do they mean?"

Birdy shook her head at the squabbling men before walking over to the desk where Sherlock kept his laptop. She opened it up and was greeted with a picture of John's daughter, Rosie. When she was prompted for a password, she restarted the computer so that she could begin the process of bypassing the security system. Birdy didn't know Sherlock's password, nor did she have any desire to ask him what it was.

Whilst she was aware she was violating her flatmate's privacy, she felt it was justified for the amount of times he had done something similar to her. Besides, if he didn't want his laptop to be used, he really should have installed better security systems when he learned that she was a professional hacker. So really, it was his fault.

Sherlock strode over to the wall-turned-detective board and stared at the pictures and articles attached to it. He pulled out a pin from a little box sitting on the side table and stuck the bouquet of yellow flowers to the wall. "Friendship. Do the roses mean that the sender is an acquaintance of Bridget, or does it mean that he knew that Bridget was friends with the murdered?"

Having gained entry into Sherlock's laptop, Birdy opened up the internet. Would it have been easier to get her own computer to do this? Probably. Could she have just used her phone? Absolutely. But maybe the two men would remember that she was not just a piece of furniture in the room if she did this. Birdy went to a search engine and typed in her query.

"Maybe it means both?" Lestrade supplied.

Birdy clicked on the first link and was brought to a page that discussed Victorian Flower Language, and the meaning behind several well-known flowers.

"No," Sherlock said, not looking away from the wall. "It means he was aware of the relationship with Bridget. The flowers are chosen specifically to represent each victim. Otherwise, why would the murderer bother to change them in the first place?" Sherlock pointed to the picture of the second victim. "Neal Gates, he was openly hostile towards Bridget. He received aconite. I bet it means something like hatred."

"'A deadly foe is near,'" Birdy chirped from her spot at Sherlock's laptop. "If you want to be exact."

Her flatmate turned around, raising an eyebrow.

"I googled it?" Birdy replied. "I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Sorry for bringing it up."

Sherlock gave her a wolfish grin and walked over to Birdy, pulling his laptop out of her reach. "Don't apologise. This is good," he replied. He sat down on his black leather chair and began reading the webpage Birdy had found. "You figured this out much faster than John would have."

"So, what? We're looking for a florist?" Lestrade asked.

Birdy pursed her lips. It did sound like a logical explanation. A florist would have easy access to flowers. But so would an avid gardener. Not to mention the fact that it was incredibly simple to go to a florist and buy flowers. You could even do it online.

"Or maybe it's just someone who likes history," Birdy said, before Sherlock could fire off an insult about D.I. Lestrade's intelligence. "I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that there is a demon florist on Fleet Street yet."

"Demon florist?" Sherlock said, his head snapping up from the laptop that was perched on his knees.

"Sweeny Todd?" Birdy replied. "The demon barber of… you know what, never mind. The point is, let's not start accusing everybody in London of murder, just because they've been a flower shop." Which was an ironic statement coming from Birdy, considering how she thought that a book that had been moved slightly the week prior meant that Mycroft had put cameras in the bookshelves to spy on her and Sherlock. Birdy turned towards her flatmate, only to find that he was staring at her intently.

"And what deductions do you draw from this evidence, Bridget?" he asked.

The woman's eyes dashed between her flatmate and the detective inspector, feeling her heartbeat starting to accelerate. She couldn't make the wrong conclusions in front of Sherlock or he would think she was an idiot.

But what really what would happen if she said the wrong thing, Birdy wondered. The world wouldn't explode. John made silly suggestions all of the time, and Sherlock had lived with him for years before the doctor had gotten married. He wouldn't kick her out if he disagreed with her line of thought. He hadn't done so for all of the times previously they had opposed each other.

Birdy wiped her sweaty hands on her trousers and forced herself to stop gnawing on the inside of her cheek. "You said that my stalker thought I was in love with him, right?" When Sherlock nodded, she continued, her voice less shaky. "He's probably a romantic then. He thinks that by sending these flowers to me, I'll know what he's trying to say, and that I'll appreciate all that he's done for me." Birdy turned towards the wall where Sherlock had posted his evidence and traced the red string that connected them with her finger. "He obviously killed Neal because he was rude to me. He implied as much in the note he left.

"Edwin is a bit harder, but my stalker must have known somehow that I was at least friendly with Edwin. But Grace," Birdy touched the wilted bundle of yellow flowers gently. "The website said that dandelions meant happiness. I mean, yeah, Grace was really nice, but she didn't exactly bring me happiness. The dandelions don't make sense."

"Maybe they're not dandelions," D.I. Lestrade said, coming to stand next to her. "I can't imagine any reputable florist selling weeds. What are these flowers, Sherlock?"

Sherlock was back to typing away on his laptop. "My guess, coltsfoot."

"You're guess?" Birdy asked, surprised that her flatmate wasn't lording his wide breadth of knowledge over them.

"Well, I'm hardly a botanist, am I? I've never seen a need to memorise common weeds found in England. It's hardly pertinent to my job."

"Says the man who can identify 243 different types of tobacco ash," Birdy muttered, turning back towards the yellow flowers.

"Go easy on him, he only just learned that the earth orbits the sun," Lestrade whispered into her ear. "Alright then, what does coltsfoot mean?"

"'Justice shall be done,'" Sherlock replied, leaping from his seat and crossing over to the evidence wall. "How had Grace wronged you, Bridget?"

"She hadn't. Grace was always really sweet when we spoke. If she ever said an unkind thing about anyone, she never did it in front of me."

"Yeah, well, if you were going to gossip about someone, you would hardly do it in front of them, would you?" Lestrade pointed out. "Maybe she did it somewhere else?"

Birdy shook her head, not wanting to believe that the deceased ballerina would say anything negative about her. "She was trying to convince the artistic director to let me dance the matinee, just so I could dance as Swanhilda when she found out _Coppélia_ was my favourite ballet. Grace really wasn't the type to maliciously gossip about others."

"Did anyone else at the studio know this was your favourite ballet?"

Birdy blew out a puff of air and ran her fingers through her hair, wincing when they caught knots. "My friend Walter, I guess? He's playing the other…" Birdy trailed off, her mind racing. No, surely Walter wouldn't.

But then Birdy's mind supplied their conversation from the previous night in the costume room: _"I don't think you'll have much time on stage now that we have Birdy."_

Had Walter been threatening Grace?

 _"You should definitely start watching your back, Grace."_

He had always said that Birdy should have gotten the lead, and at the time, she had just assumed that he was being a supportive friend. Had he seen Grace getting the role of Swanhilda as an injustice towards Birdy? Could Walter, the same sweet man who took notes for her when she missed rehearsal and let her cry on his shoulder when she was stressed out, be the same man who murdered three people?

Walter had been late to rehearsal yesterday. Sometime between putting on his costume and his entrance, he had disappeared. Grace was completely healthy when she had put on her costume, and had went to find her water bottle. Walter had helped Grace drink from her water bottle on more than one occasion yesterday, and Grace had complained that it didn't taste minty. Had he stolen the water bottle and replaced the mint leaves in Grace's water bottle with leaves from monkshood?

No matter how Birdy looked at it, she realised the situation did not look good for her friend.

"This Walter, what's his last name?" Lestrade asked gently.

"Something is wrong. This is a mistake. Walter wouldn't hurt Grace," Birdy breathed, feeling light headed. "Walter wouldn't hurt anyone."

"O'Malley. I spoke with him this morning when I was interviewing the other dancers. I know his address," Sherlock said as he grabbed his coat and flew out the door.

"Detective Inspector, please. Wait," Birdy said, grabbing onto Lestrade's coat as he moved to follow her flatmate. "I know Walter and something is wrong here. Let me help."

D.I. Lestrade gave Birdy what she assumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile, "You've already helped us a lot, Ms Mason. Let us handle it from here." He patted the hand that was clutching on his sleeve, but Birdy only held on tighter.

"I know Walter, sir, and he wouldn't do this. Please, let me come with you."

The front door to 221 Baker Street slammed shut behind Sherlock, and the older man used her momentary distraction to pull his arm out of her grip. He backed away from her and exited the room, calling over his shoulder, "Stay here, Ms Mason. Everything will be okay."

Everything would be okay? For whom? Not for the three people who were murdered. Definitely not Walter. Sherlock was probably on his way over to his flat now to interrogate him. Birdy spun around and dashed towards the window, watching as Lestrade got into his car and pulled away.

But was Walter even innocent? How well did she even know her friend? She had only met him when she started dancing at the studio, what? Six months ago? All of the evidence seemed to point towards his guilt.

Birdy took deep, cleansing breath. What would Sherlock say?

 _Use your head, Bridget. What is logical?_

What was logical? Was Walter capable of murder? Or was he being framed?

 _"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."_

What could she eliminate?

One thing was for certain, she had no plans to sit around 221 B Baker Street and wait to find out.

Birdy glanced at the web that Sherlock had created on the wall but she decided after a brief glance that there wasn't anything new that she could learn from it. She needed more information. Birdy noticed the Sherlock's laptop, sitting, still opened, on his desk. She slid into the chair and opened up his files, looking to see if he had any case notes. When she found none, Birdy opened up his email, hoping that he had been sent something about the case only to find nothing there either.

Birdy slammed the lid of the laptop shut and sat back in the desk chair. There had to be some way to find out what was going on. But nothing short of hacking into Scotland Yard's files was—

 _No, that was most definitely illegal._

But she needed to know.

 _I could go to prison for that._

Mycroft Holmes did owe her a favour.

"Mrs Hudson, I'm going out!"

A Little Birdy Told Me

Birdy used the train ride over to devise her plan.

When she reached her office, she pulled on a pair of disposable gloves that she had taken from under the kitchen sink and entered in the fifteen digit code into the electronic lock before slipping inside the dark building. Birdy was slightly surprised to find the building empty, knowing the odd working patterns some of her colleagues had, but was glad that she would be alone. The less people she had to explain her behaviour to, the better.

Birdy had considered picking a cubical at random, but she decided against it when she considered that most of them could be seen by the security cameras. She doubted that she would be interrupted, but the less she was seen, the better. She was about to break the law, after all. For that reason, Birdy headed towards her cubical knowing, thanks to Neal's actions a few months prior, that it was out of sight. She ducked into the cubicle across from her own, not wanting to use her own computer for what she would have to do.

The young woman flicked on the desk lamp and powered up the many computers on the desk. She calculated that she had twenty minutes at most before Scotland Yard learned of the data breach, so she had to act fast. When the computers were ready, Birdy began opening the necessary windows and signing on with a fake handle so her actions wouldn't be directly traced back to her. Assuming of course, that she wasn't caught in the act.

It was difficult to tell which was moving faster as she worked: Birdy's fingers or her pulse. When she found the backdoor to Scotland Yard's security system, she quickly gained entrance into the database with more ease than she would have imagined. It was actually quite alarming. If Birdy didn't go to prison for this, she would need to talk to Mycroft about improving Scotland Yard's security system. But at the moment, there was no time for such thoughts, and Birdy found herself downloading file after file containing information she thought were pertinent. She could hear the printer spitting out the pages down the hall. There were a few video files, which she downloaded as well and put on a memory stick. She would watch them later from the safety of her bedroom.

When she had finished getting all that she thought was necessary, Birdy closed down the windows then wiped the hard drive. She did feel a little bad about that, knowing that she just erased all of the work her colleague had been working on, but it was better than having his computer confiscated by the police. Turning off the desk light, she jumped out of the chair and ran towards the printer, unsure of how many minutes had gone by. Probably too many, Birdy thought, shoving the papers into her handbag.

Birdy thought her heart stopped when she heard the door to the office open. She dived towards her cubical, hoping to find something she could use as an excuse for her being there. When the office lights flickered on, Birdy saw her work laptop sitting on her desk, which she grabbed and exited the cubical, trying to appear calm.

She let out a small scream when she collided with a person.

"Oh, hey Birdy," Joshua said pleasantly, catching the woman before she toppled over. "I didn't know you were here. Why were the lights off?"

The young woman let out a shaky laugh. "Yeah, I am. I forgot my laptop. I was planning on working from home for the next couple of days."

"It probably would've been easier to find if you had turned on the lights, Love," Joshua laughed. "I forgot mine too. If you wait a moment, I can give you a ride home?"

Birdy tried to protest, making excuses that ranged from not wanting to burden him to needing to leave right that very moment, but Joshua waved at her worrying, and sauntered off, reappearing seconds later with a laptop case in his hands. "See," he said with a jovial smile, "that didn't take too long." He wrapped a long, noodle-like arm that had a surprisingly strong grip around her shoulders and led her towards the exit, chattering the whole way about some inane topic that Birdy couldn't force her paranoid mind to focus on.

Joshua led her to the only car in the carpark and all but shoved her into the passenger seat. Birdy thought that the red sports car looked surprisingly expensive for someone who was possibly an intern. She let herself relax into the soft leather seats as the car pulled out of the carpark and began to move through the late evening London traffic.

"Where am I dropping you off?" Joshua asked, his dark eyes sliding briefly from the road to his passenger.

"Baker Street, if you don't mind," Birdy replied softly. After a few minutes of silence, Birdy felt that the atmosphere was becoming suffocating. It was probably due to her guilt, as Joshua didn't seem to show any signs of discomfort, but Birdy found her mouth opening regardless, trying to fill what her brain deemed to be an awkward silence.

"I've been curious for a while, Joshua," Birdy began. "About what your job was?"

It was luck that the traffic had forced the car to come a standstill, because Joshua's head turned to her so fast, that she knew they would have been in an accident if they had been moving.

"Sorry?" He asked incredulously.

"What is your job? I see you at the office almost every day, but I've never seen a cubicle with your name on it."

"Yeah, that's because I'm not doing the same work," Joshua chuckled, removing a hand from the steering wheel to run it through his hair. "I've got an office in the back. My uncle runs the company and I help him. What did you think I did?"

Birdy felt her face heating up and was glad that Joshua was looking out the windscreen again. "I thought— well, you always bring me things so I thought that you worked— I dunno, maybe the mail room?"

Joshua coughed, trying to clear trying to clear his throat. "Oh, no. I uh, just like seeing you." He let out an awkward laugh and turned his head to look at me. "Kind of lame, I know, but I wasn't sure how to approach you."

"Oh," Birdy responded, nodding her head. Then she realised what the man was trying to say. "Oh! I see. Yes. I understand." She pressed a hand to her cheek, annoyed at herself for blushing like a schoolgirl.

Joshua laughed as he turned the car onto what Birdy recognised to be Baker Street. "Yeah, oh." He parked the car in front of her flat and turned to face her. "Listen, I don't know if this is against company policy or not, but maybe if you're free next week, we could go and drinks after work?"

That did sound like fun. She would love a drink after the last 24 hours she had had, and Joshua wouldn't be terrible company. Adding in the high likelihood that her ballet's production would be at the very least postponed in the wake of Grace's death, Birdy would have a lot of free time in the next coming week. So why was she hesitating?

Birdy bit her lip and looked up at the young man in front of her. "That sounds like fun, Joshua. It's just that…" how exactly could you turn down a potential date by saying that you had a stalker, without driving them away?

Joshua's smile fell slightly. "Oh right. I forgot about that. Molly right?"

What? "Molly?"

"Yeah, your girlfriend? The person you are having lunch dates with?"

"That's not it." Birdy found herself giggling at the absurdity of the situation. "She is just a friend. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I'm not exactly the… safest person to take out for drinks right now." Birdy paused, wondering exactly how much she should tell Joshua. Her stalker was clearly connected to three unsolved homicides. "I've got a stalker," she said finally. "And I don't want him to harass you."

Joshua sat in silence for a moment as he absorbed her words. "I'm not worried about that. Is there— is there anything I can do for you?"

Birdy shook her head and pulled her handbag closer to her body. "I just want you to stay safe." Birdy opened the car door and stepped out on the pavement. "But I'll figure out who is behind all of this."

Joshua set her a sweet smile. "I'm sure that you will. Have a nice night, Birdy."

"Thank you for the ride, Joshua. I'll see you around." Birdy closed the door behind her and trudged up the front steps of 221 Baker Street. She opened the front door and waved at Joshua, slipped inside. As she was closing the door, she could see the tail lights of the red sports car disappearing into traffic. Birdy leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the door, taking in a sigh of relief.

When Birdy tucked herself into to bed a few hours later, she was feeling almost at ease considering what all had transpired that evening. She wasn't sure what caused the calmness, but she wondered if it was what normal people felt. Birdy wondered how long it would last. She would have to ask her therapist about it.

Birdy was nearly asleep when her mobile alerted her of an email. She considered just leaving it until morning, but with so many things happening lately, she decided it would be unwise to ignore it.

It was an email from an unknown sender with an attachment. It was probably just spam.

Birdy opened the email anyway.

 _I saw that you missed a file. Do try to stay out of trouble, Ms Mason. –M.H._

 **(A/N: This is the longest chapter I've written so far for this story. I really liked how it turned out. What about you? Thank you all who commented, I truly do appreciated it! If you have theories, let me know, because I love hearing them! -CheckAlexa)**


	10. The Fledgling Detective

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

The Fledgling Detective

Pieces of paper were fanned out in a circle on the hardwood floor, organised in such a manner that the average on looker would not be able to discern a pattern. Pictures of crime scenes were intermixed with coroner's reports, witness statements from three different crimes were highlighted and covered in sticky notes, and a map of London had been marked up in multiple pen colours. In the middle of all this chaos (or at least chaos for her) was a frustrated Birdy, who had woken up at 5 am and hadn't stopped staring at the print outs since.

Birdy hadn't spoken to anyone but Mrs Hudson, who had knocked on her door a few hours previously and asked if the young woman had wanted breakfast, only to be sent away with a reply laced with forced politeness. Mrs Hudson hadn't thought much of it, after all she was the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, but she knew that the woman would be mortified by her behaviour when she wasn't quite so busy. It was for this reason that she met Sherlock at the front door when he finally returned to 221 Baker, so as to inform him not to disturb his obviously preoccupied flatmate. This, of course, seemed to be all the invitation the consulting detective needed to harass the hacker.

"What have you found?" Sherlock asked, walking into her bedroom unannounced and towing a red-faced Dr Watson behind him.

"Excuse me?" Birdy replied, looking up from her reading and turning to face the two men. She had a streak of ink that was smeared across her cheek and her hair was falling out of the messy bun on top of her head, but she didn't seem to be too bothered by intruders. "And take off your shoes if you're going to be coming into my room. Do you know how many germs there are on the bottom of your shoes?"

Sherlock huffed in annoyance but did as he was told. He then bent to pick up the piece of paper that was closest to him. "The case. You are obviously working on it, so what are your conclusions?"

"How did you know that I was working on the case?" She replied, genuinely curious. Had Mycroft called his younger brother to inform him what she had been up to?

"Mrs Hudson said that you were working. It isn't your day off and you never work from home. I took a guess."

"A guess, hmm?" Birdy said, putting the cap on her pen. "I didn't know you made those."

"Most of the job is just clever guesswork," John supplied, still hovering in the doorway.

Sherlock turned and shot his friend an indigent look. "It is not. I carefully observe my surrounding and then extrapolate from the information I have gathered conclusions about what has transpired."

"That does sound like guessing to me," Birdy said. "John, you can come in as well, you know. I don't bite."

John grinned at the woman and kicked off his own shoes before walking into the bedroom. He looked around at the sparse décor. "It's weird being back in this room."

"It probably looks a bit different then when you lived here," Birdy replied, standing up so that she could offer John her desk chair, only to find that Sherlock had made himself comfortable in it.

"As touching as this little stroll down memory lane is, may we please get back to the murders?" Sherlock snapped. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and paired with a pout on his lips, the consulting detective looked like a six foot toddler.

Birdy pursed her lips at his tone, but she nodded. "I've been going over all the information that Scotland Yard has on the case —"

"So essentially, you've been reading nothing"

"—and I've been trying to find a common link between my friends and my colleagues." Birdy continued, ignoring Sherlock's interjection. "So far I haven't been able to find one, so I tried something different." She picked up the map of London and waved it around. "I've marked the locations of each of my friend's and co-worker's houses with blue. The black are the locations of each murder. The red marks where the suspects live."

Sherlock leaned towards her and snatched the map out of her hands, his light eyes darting quickly across the page. "All of your friends are suspects."

Birdy rolled her eyes. "I do have more than one friend, Sherlock." He merely grunted at this so she continued on. "The only problem with the information so far, is it doesn't lend itself to many conclusions. It hasn't been very helpful in narrowing down the information so far because the victims were chosen because of their relationship with me. I was obviously missing something, so I decided to change tactics again." Birdy picked up the stack of papers she had been reading from. "I looked up every florist in London and what types of flowers they sold."

"Almost every shop in London sells yellow roses," John began.

"Exactly. But not all sell monkshood," Birdy finished. "It's poisonous, so I guess not every florist would want to sell them."

Sherlock's face was a blank mask as he set the map of London on her desk and turned to survey his flatmate over steepled fingers. "Obviously, you looked up sales records for those shops."

Birdy nodded. "But none of the shops had any record of monkshood being sold around the time of the second murder. Or at least, nobody paid with a bank card. I certainly wouldn't if it could connect me to a crime."

John groaned. "So what you're saying is that we are going to have to interview all of the florists and see if they remember anything?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Bridget will narrow it down for us."

Birdy reached around Sherlock to pick up the map she had made. "It's a bit silly, really," she began, walking back to her nest of papers and sitting back down on the floor. "But I was watching a show on the telly— one of those crime dramas, you know? And they talked about a geographical profile. I did some research this morning and found something called Rossmo's formula, and it's used to predict where a serial killer lives."

"People aren't computers, Birdy. You can't apply them to a formula," John exclaimed, looked disturbed by the suggestion. He already had to deal with Sherlock's weird atypical analysis of people; he didn't need another person like that. Had Birdy always been like analytical, or was his former flatmate rubbing off on the woman?

"From what I understand, serial killers have rigid patterns that they are often unwilling to deviate from. For that reason, they are prime subjects to model a mathematical equation on. Therefore, if you look at human behaviour, you can postulate that a serial killer will one, not commit crimes too close to his home, and two, the serial killer will not travel farther than necessary to find victims. Because my stalker is killing people that have a connection to me, I am, perhaps erroneously, going to apply this pattern to all fascists of his personality. Therefore, he's not going to buy the flowers too close to his home, but he's probably not going to travel to Leeds to buy them either. At least I hope not. Either way, thought, the killer is clever; clever enough that Sherlock hasn't caught him, but I wonder if he is smart enough to overcome human behaviours."

"Geographic profiling isn't an exact science," Sherlock reminded her.

"No, that's true, but it does hold some merit." Birdy sat down, picked up a green marker, and began to mark flower shops that sold monkshood. "It's just a theory, anyway."

Sherlock leaned back in the desk chair, sticking his long legs out so that Birdy had to shift to avoid being kicked. "Well, don't let us bother you."

"Would you like a calculator?" John asked upon noticing the formula the woman had written down on the back of a crime scene photo. He was doubtful that the equation would work, but this was the first time he had ever seen the young woman so passionate about something that he was unwilling to stop her.

Birdy looked up at the doctor and gave him a sweet smile. "Thank you for the offer, but it would only slow me down." She then turned her attention back to the paper and began to predict the probability of finding her stalker within every block of each florist. It took nearly an hour, and when she sat up, her neck was aching, but she didn't pay it too much notice as she began to overlay the probabilities on her map.

She checked her math.

She checked the map.

She checked her math again.

"I think… I've made a mistake," Birdy stuttered finally.

Her flatmate gave no outward sign of emotion at her statement. "I doubt that you did."

"No, I must have," Birdy replied, blinking rapidly to clear the tears that had started to form in her eyes. "This doesn't make any sense."

John bent down to look at her map. "What's wrong, Birdy? Why do you think you're wrong?"

Sherlock stood swiftly and strolled out of the room. "Bridget has allowed feelings to drive her investigation, rather than facts."

Birdy couldn't move her eyes from the map to even glare at her flatmate. "I have to be wrong," she whispered. She was frozen on the floor, staring at the red dot that sat in the epicentre of her calculations. Walter O'Malley.

"Do you? Text me the address, if you would," Sherlock instructed from the doorway. "Come along, John, we've got a florist to visit."

John sent Birdy an apologetic smile before following after his friend.

No it wasn't apologetic. It was a smile full of pity.

Now, there were very few things Birdy hated more than germs, misogynists, and disorganisation, but people pitying her was definitely one of them. She had gotten enough of those looks growing up when she had a panic attack at school, or when she was passed over for jobs she was clearly qualified for, simply because she was a woman. She got the same look from her friends when she described why she got so anxious at even the thought of going out to a club. She saw the pity in her parent's eyes when she confessed to them that she hadn't made many acquaintances since moving to London.

Birdy was many things: anxious, sometimes overly emotional, constantly stressed, and scared of her own shadow, just to name a few. But pathetic she was not.

She had graduated from university with high honours. She was a decent cellist. She had never been caught for hacking, save Mycroft, unlike her other university friends. She could do a handstand. She held a job in a male dominated field and was damn good at what she did. She managed to get an understudy role in a ballet company she had only just joined. She could whistle three octaves. She had even lived with Sherlock Holmes for an extended amount of time without going crazy, which, in her opinion, was nothing short of a miracle.

John could keep his pity, Birdy thought angrily.

It was with this anger pulsating through her veins that she grabbed her mobile. Hands trembling, Birdy typed out the address and hit send. Then she stood up, put on her trainers, and left.

A Little Birdy Told Me

John couldn't remember the last time he was in a florist shop. Perhaps right before his wedding? Well, he had really let his then fiancée and Sherlock plan the wedding, so probably not. Maybe he should pick up a bouquet for Mary when he left. What kind of flowers did she like? That was probably something Sherlock would know. The doctor glanced back at his best friend, who was uncharacteristically wandering behind him, looking at the different flowers with mild curiosity. John hand only just opened his mouth to ask the consulting detective when the head of an older gentleman popped his head out from behind the rows of plants.

"May I help you?" The florist asked, tucking a pair of pruning shears into the pocket of his smock.

John nodded at the old man. "We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions. Isn't that right, Sherlock?" John shot a glare in the direction of the man in question, who had bent down to stroke the petals on a carnation, seemingly uninterested in the conversation.

The old man smiled. "Of course! When is the wedding?"

John ignored the inquiry and pulled out his mobile which he handed to the florist. "We're looking for the man in the picture. We believe that he might have come into your shop a few times."

The florist squinted at the photo of Walter O'Malley for a moment before perching the glasses he had on a chain around his neck on the bridge of his nose. He stared at it for another moment before shaking his head. "I'm sorry, a lot of young men come through here every day. They all begin to blend together after 40 years in the business." The old man called for his granddaughter to come over and look at the picture.

"A lot of men come in here," the young woman said. "I can only remember the ones who bought something unusual. If you give me a name, I could look though the records to see if he has bought anything here. I just convinced Granddad to go digital. It sure makes things a lot easier!"

The elderly man huffed. "It makes it easier for people to steal my money. Everything is on the line now a days. Absolutely no security."

"Granddad, we talked about this. Besides, we had that nice woman test out the security for us, didn't we?" The granddaughter looked back over to John and smiled. "I apologise. Do you have a name you want me to put into the computer?"

"No, that won't be necessary. He would have paid in cash," John replied. He glanced over at Sherlock who was sniffing a peony. "He did buy something unusual, though. Monkshood?"

"Monkshood?" The elder repeated. "Why would he do a thing like that?"

John debated on whether to tell the florist that the flowers had been purchased to murder someone but decided against it. "I'm afraid I can't say."

The young woman shook her head and handed John back his mobile. "That explains why I've never seen him before; he's never come here. We don't sell monkshood. It's more trouble than it's worth."

The conversation didn't last much longer than that. After thanking the two, John grabbed Sherlock by the collar of his coat and dragged him out of the shop.

"You knew, didn't you?" John seethed. "That's why you weren't paying attention."

Sherlock straightened his coat collar. "Of course I knew. Bridget tested their security systems around the time of the second murder. It was the first logical conclusion that this would be where she sent us."

"But why didn't you say anything?" John snapped. "Why have us even go to the shop if it was just going to waste our time?"

Sherlock gave John a look that to an outsider would have appeared to be one of annoyance, but John knew translated to something closer to endearment. Possibly. It was always hard to tell with the consulting detective. "So she could have more time."

John paused his seething to glance at his friend. "Who, Birdy? What would she need more time for?"

The consulting detective smirked in response before turning suddenly and strolling towards the street to hail a taxi. "Bridget is making this case interesting, John. Hurry, we don't want to miss this."

 **(A/N: Sorry for the late upload! I'm on my spring break from college. Also, if anyone would be willing to Beta for this story, I would most appreciate it. PM me if you are interested. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Thank you all for your kind reviews, I truly appreciated them all. If you have any theories about the story, leave a comment! I love reading them. -CheckAlexa)**


	11. What in Carnation?

**_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._**

What in Carnation?

The bell above the door jingled as Birdy entered the shop. She breathed deeply, letting the strong perfume of flowers calm her racing heart. She had fretted the whole walk over to the shop after texting Sherlock the wrong address, worried that he would be angry with her.

No. There wasn't any time for anxiety. Walter's freedom was on the line.

Birdy glanced around for surveillance cameras. She had watched the videos she had pulled from the Scotland Yard servers, which turned out to be CCTV footage from all of the crime scenes. The weird thing was, however, that they had all been tampered with: it was subtle, but the footage had jumped slightly, indicating that it had been altered. Scotland Yard had made a note about it, saying that nobody had been able to restore the full videos. Birdy even tried her hand at restoring them, but she was ultimately unsuccessful. The person who had tampered with the footage obviously knew what they were doing.

The murderer had the ability to tamper with CCTV cameras. That took at least some skill with computers. Way more skill with computers than Birdy knew Walter possessed. He had trouble installing a computer game the week prior, so it seemed unlikely that he could have accessed the cameras, let alone have permanently removed portions of the recordings.

Unless it was all an act.

No, that would be far too much planning for Walter. Who would think of things like that?

Sherlock, probably.

And Sherlock was probably going to be furious that she had lied to him.

She shook her head and tried to refocus on the task at hand, but it was difficult. What if the murderer had seen the surveillance cameras and erased the footage on them as well? Or what if he had the foresight to check to see if there were cameras at this florist, just as she had done?

The expression on Birdy's face must have looked odd, because one of the shopkeepers approached her with slight smile. The nametag on the front of her green smock declared that the woman's name was Victoria. "I know, it can be rather overwhelming in here."

Birdy gritted her teeth and gave the woman a nod.

"Are you looking for something specific?"

"Well, actually," how could she ask for permission to see their security tapes despite not being a police officer? "I have a bit of a weird request. You see… I think my boyfriend has been buying flowers here recently, but he hasn't actually given me any."

Birdy could see she had the shopkeeper's full attention. "And you think the tosser has been cheating on you?" When Birdy nodded, Victoria scowled. "Do you want me to check our records for any of his bank cards?"

Birdy bit the inside of her lip, surprised that she had even gotten this far in the conversation. "Well, that's the problem. He hasn't been using his card from what I can tell from the bills. I was wondering, do you think I could have a look at your surveillance footage, to see if he is on them? I know the days he would have been here."

To Birdy's astonishment, the woman nodded. "Of course. Anything to catch him in the act. I just dumped my own boyfriend of two years for the same reason." She waved Birdy towards the back of the store. "What dates?"

"To save you time, do you think you could just put the entire time frame on this memory stick?" Birdy asked after telling Victoria the dates. It was a long shot, Birdy figuring that it was some sort of an invasion of privacy, but to her further astonishment Victoria nodded vigorously and took the device from the woman's hand.

"No problem. Whilst I do this, let's see if anyone else has seen him. Do you have a picture of him?"

Birdy nodded and fumbled with her handbag for a moment, before extracting her mobile. She scrolled through her photos, pulling up a selfie that Walter had taken when she had fallen asleep on his loveseat one afternoon. Birdy could be seen in the background and Walter wore an impish grin on his face. It wasn't the best picture of him, but it was one of the few she had that was up close. Birdy felt her heart contract at the sight of her friend. Was that really the face of a killer? Birdy nearly threw her mobile at the woman in her haste.

Unless, of course, Walter was guilty. How well did Birdy really know him? She racked her brains for information of the blond dancer. Did she even know what he did for a living? What was his favourite colour?

Victoria stared intently at the picture for a moment. "Well, the good news is that I've never seen him before. But before we clear him, let me ask my co-workers." Before Birdy had time to process these words, Victoria scurried over to the till and pushed a button, calling all of the employees to her. Within seconds, Birdy found herself surrounded by employees in green smocks, watching in shock while Victoria described their predicament. Judging by the looks on the staff's face, this wasn't an uncommon situation, and they all dutifully stepped forward to look at the picture on Birdy's mobile.

A thin man with a receding hair line squinted at the picture before turning to Birdy. "Well, I don't mean to alarm you," he began, an apologetic look on his face. "But this looks like the young man I was just helping." The man returned the mobile to Birdy. "He's looking at lilies."

Birdy thanked the man quietly, shoving her mobile back in her handbag. The man gave her a weak smile before wandering off in the other direction.

Victoria placed a comforting hand on Birdy's shoulder. "You need any back up?"

Birdy shook her head before heading towards the part of the shop Victoria had indicated, focusing on her breathing. Now would not be a good time to have an anxiety attack. She clenched her fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms. Now was a time to be brave. She took even steps, forcing herself not to run.

It was difficult to find her target around all of the rows of plants, but when she reached the section with the lilies, Birdy saw the unmistakable blond curls and well-toned body of Walter.

Walter must have heard her approaching because he turned around. "Is, everything al— oh. What are you doing here, Birdy?" The question sounded so genuine, as if Walter honestly had no clue that she was at the shop to begin with. "Are you here to buy flowers for Grace?"

The innocent look in his light blue eyes caused Birdy's heart to contract painfully. She found herself nodding, not really in control of her movements. It felt almost as if she was floating above her body, watching, not feeling anything.

 _Depersonalisation_ , a voice that sounded suspiciously like Sherlock scoffed. _Hardly useful_.

Walter sent her a small smile before turning back towards the flowers. "I was think of sending lilies to her family. That's what people send, right?" He reached forward and stroked one of the flower's petals. "I never understood that. Lilies smell terrible. Why not send something better?"

"Why not pink carnations?" Birdy said, finding her voice.

"Why would I send those?" Walter asked incredulously, turning to face her. "That hardly seems appropriate."

Birdy took a deep breath and met his gaze. "They stand for remembrance." Birdy watched his face closely, looking for any sign of recognition at her words. "Didn't you know that?"

Walter furrowed his brow in confusion. "No. Why would I know that?"

Hope blossomed in the woman's chest at her friend's words. Unless he was a fantastic actor, he seemed genuinely unaware of the meaning of flowers. "I thought that it was common knowledge."

"Is it?" Walter asked, biting his lip. He sighed and turned away. "Either way, I doubt that her family would want me to send anything to her."

Birdy stepped forward and placed a hand between Walter's shoulder blades. "It wasn't your fault."

The blond gave her a wan smile, and Birdy felt her heart breaking at the sight of his pain. "That's not what the police seem to think. A detective came by my flat yesterday, questioning me." Birdy had never heard the man sound so defeated.

"Sherlock Holmes, you mean."

Walter looked up at her so fast that Birdy could have sworn she heard his neck crack. "Yes, that was him. I thought I recognised the name. He's your flatmate, isn't he?" When Birdy nodded, Walter grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her so that they were facing each other, his well-manicured fingernails digging into her skin. "You have to convince him I'm innocent."

Birdy looked into her friend's wide blue eyes, filled with so much pain and desperation, and knew, without a doubt, that Sherlock was wrong. She was not looking at the face of a cold-blooded murderer. "That's what I'm trying to do."

Surprise flitted across Walter's face. "Y-you are?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Birdy could see at least three shop workers loitering nearby, no doubt trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. Birdy reached up and removed Walter's hand from her shoulder, lacing their fingers together. "Come with me."

Birdy led Walter out of the shop, avoiding the eyes of the workers. They nearly made it to the door, when Victoria bounded up. "You forgot this," the woman said, pressing the memory stick into Birdy's free hand, glancing suspiciously up at Walter for a moment. "Good luck."

Birdy smiled gratefully at the helpful woman, before pulling Walter outside and hailing a taxi. The woman all but shoved her friend into the backseat before sliding in after and directing the driver to take them to Baker Street.

Had Birdy paid a little more attention to her surroundings, she might have noticed that the two of them were being watched by a tall man in a Belstaff and a very surprised blond. And had the consulting detective paid a little less attention to the two dancers, he might have noticed an irate man watching all four of them.

A Little Birdy Told Me

Birdy called out to Sherlock when they arrived back to the flat, slightly surprised when she didn't get a response. She checked her mobile for text messages, even more shocked that she had none. Surely her flatmate had figured out her deception by now?

Walter's tightening grip on her wrist reminded Birdy of her purpose. She led her friend up the staircase and into the flat's lounge, pushing him onto the black sofa before thundering up to her room to get her laptop. When she returned to the lounge, she found Walter staring intently at the massive web of clues that Sherlock had created on the damask patterned wall. His eyes were fixed specifically on a picture of himself, a look of anguish on his face.

"They really think that I did it," he whispered to Birdy after she came to stand next to him. "I mean, I guess they're right. I did technically kill Grace. I kept making her drink from that damn bottle."

Birdy placed a hand on Walter's back, rubbing gently. "You couldn't have known that her water was poisoned," she replied.

"Why would anyone want to kill her?" Walter asked, his voice cracking slightly.

There was a split second where Birdy considered lying to Walter. It was hard to know that someone you knew was murdered, after all, but to find out it was because of your friend? Birdy was reluctant to admit that she didn't want Walter to know, in case he saw her differently. What if he blamed her for Grace's death? But no, that wasn't her fault. Sherlock had reminded her of that.

"Because she was seen as a threat to me," Birdy explained. Under the increasingly disturbed gaze of Walter, Birdy began to recount the events of the previous four months, starting with the attempted kidnapping by Mycroft Holmes and the eleven yellow roses, to the threating note attached to a poisonous plant, to the coltsfoot pinned to the wall.

"And because I was at the dance studio the night Grace died, I was automatically considered a suspect," Walter said, sinking down into the sofa. He buried his face in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, and took a shuddering breath.

"That, and because you have been to the coffee shop where Edwin worked with me. Add in the fact that you were at my workplace the night Neal was killed, and it seems like all signs point to you."

Walter's head snapped up at the last part of her words. "What are you talking about, Birdy? I've never been to your office."

Birdy felt her head tilt in confusion, remembering the texts she had received from him the night Neal was killed. Could he honestly forgotten about it? Considering his reactions, it seemed unlikely. She tried to remind the blond, and at his further insistence, she pulled out her mobile and showed him the texts she had received from him.

"No, Birdy, look," Walter pulled out his own device and scrolled through their past conversations. "I never sent that to you." The two of them compared their exchanges, going back nearly four months, and noticed an alarming amount of discrepancies between the two mobiles. Some were small exchanges, such as Walter allegedly sending a picture of cute dog he saw at the park ("I never use the red heart emoji. I always use the heart eyes!"), to long conversations about their days. Some texts were even quite personal, something she would only tell a trusted friend.

Birdy felt her fingers begin to go numb.

Who had she been talking to?

Birdy slid of the sofa, not trusting her legs to support herself, and pulled her abandoned laptop towards her. She connected her mobile to the computer, pulling up the necessary screens to hack her phone. She handed the memory stick to Walter, and instructed him to use Sherlock's laptop to watch the CCTV footage from the flower shop.

The two dancers sat for over an hour working on their tasks, the silence only occasionally broken by the sound of Walter's mobile going off as Birdy sent a text, hoping that it would go to the fake Walter instead. That was always followed by a shouted profanity from the woman. Birdy knew that mobile phones weren't her speciality, but she didn't have a way to contact anybody who could— with her phone obviously hacked, she didn't want to risk calling on Walter's phone in the chance that the stalker could listen to the conversation their either.

Walter suddenly sat up straight, squinting at the computer screen. "I think I've got something." He angled the laptop towards the young woman. "He keeps looking at something in his hand. I think it's a book." He hit the play button, and the two of them watched the black and white footage of dark haired man enter the flower shop.

It was grainy and jumpy. Sometimes the man would wander out of the camera's range, and it would take an agonizing few seconds before he was picked up by another camera. He would pause and stare at some of the flowers, then glance at the book in his hand, then continue on. He had a thin, lanky build, was slightly flat footed, and most likely right handed. He asked a shopkeeper for assistance eleven minutes and thirty seconds after he entered the establishment, and at that point, he followed the man to the till. It was at this point that Walter and Birdy were able to get a relatively good look at the face of the man, and the woman gasped as many details began to make sense.

She hadn't thought much about his appearance that night; she had just been so relieved for a quick getaway. She merely gave him her street name and told him to drive. Thinking back, Birdy had never mentioned her actual address.

And Joshua had delivered straight to her front door.

Walter's voice sounded very far away when he asked her if she recognised the man in the recording. All she could do in response was nod, unable to tear her eyes away from the image of Joshua, purchasing the plastic wrapped pot of flowers. She was light headed and her blood felt as if it had been turned to ice.

Oh God. She had been working with a murderer for six months. How much did he know about her? When did his obsession start? Did he know about her before she moved to London? His uncle ran the company— did Joshua somehow influence her getting the job? The room suddenly felt too hot, and Birdy was very much aware of the pounding of her heart.

"So this is the guy?" Walter asked. "We need to call the police." He leaned forward to grab his mobile off the table.

 _Focus, Bridget. How do we fix this?_

"No."

Walter stopped and looked up at her in shock. "No? Birdy, this guy killed Grace. We need to call the police."

Birdy reached out and snatched the phone from his hands. "I said no." She turned off the mobile then did the same to hers. "We can't use these. They've been hacked. We call anybody and Joshua will know." She leaned forward and removed the memory stick from Sherlock's laptop.

"Then what do we do?" Walter asked, his pupils dilated in fear. "Make a run for it?"

The answer came to them in the form of a cheerful "Hoo-hoo!" as Mrs. Hudson bustled into the lounge, carrying a tray. "I thought that you two could use a pot of tea. You've been working rather hard from the sound of it."

Birdy glanced briefly at her landlady before grabbing the two mobiles and the memory stick and shoving them into Walter's palm. "Sherlock's room is at the end of the hallway. Behind his door should be one of his dressing gowns. Put these in the pockets." Walter nodded, a bit stunned at her attitude, but stood and disappeared in the direction he was instructed.

"Mrs. Hudson, do you have a mobile I could use?" Birdy asked. It wasn't the perfect solution, but it was far less likely that Joshua would have bothered to hack her older landlady.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "I'm sorry, dear. It's only just died. You're welcome to use my landline, if you like."

A landline? Who used those anymore?

Birdy could have kissed Mrs. Hudson. Nobody used landlines anymore! Joshua probably wouldn't have thought to check to see if there was one. "That's even better."

Mrs. Hudson nodded in confusion at her tenant, but set the tea tray down on the table, and led the younger woman down the steps. They had nearly just reached the landlady's flat when there was a knock on the front door of 221B Baker Street. Birdy thought her heart was going to leap out of her throat at the sound.

"Oh, you go ahead in and make your call, dear. I'll answer the door."

Birdy reached out and grabbed the woman by her shoulder. "Call Sherlock," she murmured, as if the visitor would somehow be able to hear her over the rush hour traffic outside. "I will get it. I think it's for me."

Mrs. Hudson nodded and scurried inside her flat.

When Birdy heard Mrs. Hudson's lock engage, she walked shakily to the door, her breath unsteady. With trembling hands, the woman reached forward, turned the knob, and opened the front door. She was greeted with the sight of a bouquet of yellow carnations.

Birdy raised her eyes, unsurprised to see the smiling face of Joshua standing in front of her.

"Do you mind if I come in?" He asked, totally at ease. "I do believe we have a lot to discuss."

 ** _(A/N: Hi there! I really hoped you enjoyed this chapter! It was really hard for me to write because it made me really anxious. I may or may not be overly attached to Birdy. Let me know what you think, and leave me questions, comments, and constructive criticism in the white box below. Seriously though. It's finals week and I need a distraction. Please review. Lots of love, CheckAlexa)_**


	12. Kill One Bird with Two Bullets

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

Kill One Bird with Two Bullets

Birdy spent a lot of her waking hours thinking about the worst thing that could happen and subsequently planning how she could stop it from happening. When she went to the bank, she went to the teller, rather than an ATM, so her card couldn't be skimmed. Most Londoners couldn't be bothered enough to push her into the path of a train, but it was best to remain a minimum of four meters away from the tracks. When she ate, she cut all of her food into tiny pieces to reduce the risk of choking. If Birdy went to a store, she kept the receipts for six weeks, in case she was suspected of shoplifting. The pigeons in Trafalgar's Square most likely were not drones for the Royal Air Force, but it didn't hurt to avoid the area whenever possible.

Yet somehow, in all of her obsessive planning, she hadn't thought through the scenario of what to do when a murdering stalker stood outside her front door.

Birdy considered slamming the door in his face. The only other option she could think of at the moment was to invite him inside, which didn't seem like a very clever idea with her knowledge of his murderous tendencies. Then again, not allowing Joshua entrance would let him know that she was aware of these extracurricular activities. Not letting him in could also anger him, and Birdy thought that angry murders wouldn't bode well for the citizens of London.

The man's head was tilting at an angle, and whilst his polite smile never left his face, something not quite as pleasant was flashing in his dark eyes. Or maybe she just being paranoid. But it felt like she had hesitated for too long. Had Joshua guessed that she knew something?

It was best to contain whatever disaster that followed, Birdy decided. The woman could practically hear her flatmate calling her an idiot as she gave Joshua a smile and stepped aside. She led her co-worker up the steps to her flat, uncharacteristically chattering in what both knew to be nervousness. Birdy could only hope that Mrs Hudson had managed to ring Sherlock. Upon further reflection, Birdy wondered why she had not just told her landlady to call for the police. That would have been much faster, and they were probably better equipped to deal with situations like these.

Because Lestrade was a bit of a fool and would manage to bollocks it up.

If Birdy lived through this, she would need to examine why her inner monologue sounded suspiciously like her flatmate.

"I'm sorry that it's a bit of a mess," Birdy found herself saying when she led Joshua into the lounge area. "My flatmate has been working and isn't the best at cleaning up after himself. I was just about to sit down for some tea though, if you would like some? Those are lovely flowers, by the way, who are they for?" God, why couldn't she just shut up already?

Joshua gave her a warm smile. "Don't worry so much, Birdy. I did drop by unannounced." He held out the bouquet of yellow carnations. "I thought it would be obvious that these were for you, though."

Birdy tried to give the man a smile of her own. "That's very kind of you. I'll go put these in some water." She pushed Joshua into John's red chair and walked into the kitchen to look for a vase. Walter was standing in the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway, his eyes wide in alarm.

Before Birdy could push her friend back towards Sherlock's bedroom, Joshua was speaking again. "Where is your friend, Birdy?"

Birdy wondered if Joshua had noticed Walter's shoes by the entrance of 221B and guessed that she wasn't alone; however, there was a certain amount of confidence in his voice suggested that he knew that Walter had entered her home hours ago and had yet to leave. Joshua hardly would be a good stalker if he didn't know where she was and who she was with, Birdy supposed.

Walter's face was drained of the little remaining colour it possessed at Joshua's words. He took a shuddering breath and forced a smile onto his face. "Just using the toilet," he said, moving into the lounge. He stuck his hand out and introduced himself to Joshua before taking a seat in Sherlock's chair.

Birdy's hands were shaking as she reached into one of the cabinets and withdrew a vase. She tried to focus on her breathing, on the men's conversation, anything to help her keep grounded. The vase was filled with water before she was even aware of her actions, and she mechanically added in the carnations. The yellow flowers felt like they were mocking her with their brightness. She placed the vase on the kitchen table, in between an Erlenmeyer flask and a beaker full of what looked like fish eyes. She considered cleaning up Sherlock's mess, when she remembered that there was an even larger and more problematic mess in the lounge: the investigation.

It would be impossible to remove the massive spider web of clues on the wall without looking like a mad woman. Plus Sherlock might actually try to kill her if she did. But her own investigation, she might be able to pass off as simply tidying up. She could even get Walter out of the room if she played her cards right.

Birdy made her way over to the coffee table where Walter and she had conducted their investigation and began to slowly, in what she hoped to look casual, began to collect their papers and files. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she could practically feel someone watching her as she tucked some notes into the top drawer of Sherlock's desk.

"What are you doing here?" Joshua asked suddenly, cutting off Walter mid-sentence. His words were posed as an innocent question, but there was a harsher undertone to it, completely different than anything Birdy had heard him use before. Even when he had argued with Neal, he had never sounded so… dangerous. The question sounded accusing, almost predatory, and it sent a tremor down Birdy's spine.

"We ran into each other when were out shopping," was Walter's reply. His voice was even and calm. His explanation was so simple, because it was totally reasonable for two acquaintances to see each other on the streets.

"Walter wanted to discuss some choreography for a performance we are in together," Birdy added, attempting to casually toss a case file into a box marked 'Scotland Yard'.

"Yes, _Coppélia_ , isn't it? You two are the leads?" To anyone else, Joshua's comments would have sounded like polite conversation. His pleasant smile had yet to leave his face and he was leaning back in the red arm chair, one leg crossed over his knee. Birdy knew, however, that her role in the ballet wouldn't have been announced— she was merely the understudy for the female lead.

"Well, only if we continue on with the production," Walter clarified. "It might be called off now." The directors were still deciding if it would be wise to go on with the production in the wake of Grace's death. There was no guarantee that Birdy would be taking the stage as Swanhilda. Birdy wasn't even sure she wanted to. It almost felt like an insult to Grace's memory.

"That is a shame," Joshua agreed. "Is there anything I could do to help?"

"No, it's fine. You've already done a lot, just by being here." Birdy sighed, hoping that her words weren't taken as an insult. She shoved her laptop into Walter's hands. "Walter, can you take this up to my room?"

Walter looked like he wanted to protest, but a quick pinch between his shoulder blades informed him that her words were an order and not up for discussion. "Yeah, I best be going home anyway." The two watched in silence as Walter stood from his seat and stretched. He shot Birdy one last concerned look before slinking out of the room.

Birdy turned towards Joshua, who was staring at her intently, his dark grey eyes narrowed into slits. "Do you make it a habit of allowing strange men into your bedroom?" His voice was low and had an angry edge to it. He had dropped the smile and relaxed posture, leaning forwards so that his feet were planted firmly on the ground. Joshua rested his elbows on his knees, fingers threaded together, looking very much like an irate parent.

Birdy felt a bubble of panic rise up in her chest which translated into nervous giggling, despite the grave situation. She sat down in Sherlock's chair and began to pour herself a cup of tea from the tray Mrs Hudson had brought up in an effort to appear relaxed. "Well, I suppose my flatmate is a bit different, but I wouldn't call him strange." She would call him late, though. Where the hell was he? "And I've known Walter for a while, so he hardly counts."

Joshua continued to stare at her, not once blinking. "I have done a lot for you, haven't I?" He said after a moment.

The woman smiled sweetly. "You brought me those lovely flowers. And you drove me home last night. Thank you again for that, by the way."

Joshua watched her for a moment more before standing and walking over to the clue web. He stared at it intently, reaching out to touch the Coltsfoot that Sherlock had pinned to the wall. "Let's not feign ignorance, Birdy. It is not becoming of either of us." The cold and detached way he spoke was almost reminiscent of Hal from _2001: A Space Odyssey_ which she hardly found comforting.

Birdy placed her tea cup back in its saucer with trembling hands. "No," she said slowly. She placed the tea cup on the side table and twisted in Sherlock's chair to better face him. "I suppose it's not."

Joshua turned around to look at Birdy once more. "I've done so much for you," he repeated, his voice beginning to shake. "And you still don't care."

Killing people was hardly a way to prove your affection for someone. "I do care, Joshua. But you killed my friend," she said, pointing out the obvious.

"She was your enemy!" He yelled so loudly that Birdy jumped in shock. He began to pace across the room, running a hand through his black hair. "She was in your way. She was stopping you from succeeding."

"Grace was a good person, Joshua, and she deserved the lead role. Not me." Nor did Birdy particularly think that she was ready to be a lead. She was, after all, still adjusting to her new life in London. "I think you are a good person too, Joshua."

The man stopped his rabid pacing to look at Birdy. "I've killed three people." His voice had returned to the soft, emotionless tone from before.

Birdy wanted to do something: shake him, hug him, anything to get him to stop speaking in that voice. "You made a mistake."

He let out a laugh without any real humour. "Do you honestly think that I regret killing them? I needed to do it. They were all in your way. They were in our way. They were stopping us from being together."

The last thing Birdy wanted was for Joshua to see that he was scaring her. She let out a slow, shaky breath and clenched her fists. She needed to choose her words wisely. "Joshua, that doesn't make any sense, and you know it."

"It doesn't make sense?" he snapped, striding towards Birdy. He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her from her seat into a standing position. "You don't make any sense! The first day I met you, you smiled at me and said 'it's nice to meet you,' and then every day after that, you would smile at me. You kept smiling at me, of course I got the message!"

Birdy tried to ignore his fingernails digging painfully into her skin. "What message, Joshua? I don't understand."

"That you were in love with me! You would accept the tea I made you. You would ask me to get things for you that were out of your reach. You would refill the toner in the printer when it ran out! You—"

"Joshua, enough!" Birdy snapped, pushing the man away from her. "Look, you are… you are very ill. But we can get you help. I'm sure we can find a therapist or something."

Joshua had turned away to face the wall again, his shoulders heaving. "This all rather like karmic justice, don't you think?" He began quietly. Something in his voice had changed. It was returned to the calm and even tone, but it was off somehow, and it made Birdy very nervous. She slowly began to back up until the back of her legs connected with John's chair. "That you would be the one to try to separate us."

"I don't want to separate us, Joshua." Birdy privately thought that there wasn't an 'us', but felt that the man would not enjoy such sentiments. "I want to help you."

Joshua chuckled and looked over his shoulder at her. "Help me, huh?" He turned so that they were facing each other. He was standing on the other side of the room, but even the meter or so of space that separated them felt as if he were right on top of her. "They're going to lock me up no matter what you say, love. I have already killed three people. Isn't that the definition of a serial killer?" He reached behind his back and pulled out a handgun that he must have had hidden in the waistband of his trousers. "What's one more to my list, right?"

Birdy wasn't sure what she had expected when she heard the hammer of the gun cock. Maybe she thought everything would happen in slow motion, the bullet firing from the handgun in slow motion, which she could dodge like Neo in _The Matrix_. Maybe she should have expected the pain of a bullet going through her body. Maybe this was all some elaborate prank and she was on some sort of talk show, and Graham Norton was going to pop out at any moment with a witty one-liner. Instead something heavy collided with her, knocking her sideways onto the floor. There was a loud bang that left her ears ringing and a thud that left the ground vibrating.

Walter let out a steady stream of expletives as he tried to sit himself up. It was quite difficult, Birdy imagined, when covered in a lot of blood. But why was he covered in blood?

"You're bleeding," Birdy pointed out. "All over my rug." This probably wasn't the most helpful thing to say to someone who had just been shot, but Birdy guessed she was in shock at this point. "Oh bollocks, you're bleeding."

Birdy wasn't a doctor or a nurse. She didn't even get the first aid badge when she was in girl guides. Birdy was an introverted, socially awkward, human interaction-fearing computer hacker. She didn't know what to do in a situation like this. Did she try to control the bleeding? Or was she supposed to remove the bullet from the wound first?

Joshua made the decision for her when he growled in anger and cocked the gun again.

"Joshua, no," Birdy said, scrambling so that she was kneeling in front of Walter. "Please, leave him. He won't try to stop you from getting me now. You want to talk, let's talk."

The man let out a strangled laugh that sent shivers down Birdy's spine. "He's not the problem, Bridget. It's you." Joshua must have thought that her face looked confused. "After all that I have done for you, just so we could be together, how do you repay me?" Joshua rubbed the hand that was holding the gun on his temple. "You ignore me. You condemn my actions. You let this man into your home when—"

Birdy needed to calm him down. Someone who could help had to be close by now, right? "You're right," she said. Birdy stretched out her arms, open palms facing him, and slowly rose to her feet. She tried to convey with her body language that she wasn't a threat. That she was completely at his mercy. "You are so right, Joshua. I have been completely ungrateful. I'm so sorry." Birdy stepped forward and place a hand on Joshua's arm. "I truly appreciate all that you've done."

The second the words were out of her mouth, Birdy knew that this was exactly the wrong thing to say. Joshua's eyes narrowed in anger and his free hand shot up to grab Birdy by the neck. "How naïve do you think I am?" He pulled on her neck and slammed her against the small strip of wall by the door. Birdy's vision went dark for a few seconds as her head made contact with the wall. She could just hear him say over the ringing in her ears, "You don't actually mean that. You just want me to spare your lives."

Birdy tried to tell him that that wasn't true. That she cared a lot about him and just wanted him to be happy. But it was hard to speak when Joshua's hand was cutting off her air supply. She grabbed at his hand, trying to pry it away from her neck, but his grip was too tight for her fingers to grab onto something.

Joshua leaned forward so that their noses were touching, his dark grey eyes menacing. Her vision still hadn't recovered fully from when her skull had collided with the wall, and now it was beginning to go dark from lack of oxygen. Even then, however, she could still see the gun that Joshua waved in front of her face.

"This is what happens, Birdy, when you try to play hero," he whispered in her ear. For a split second, Birdy thought that Joshua was going to kiss her. But then he backed up slightly and turned so that he was facing Walter. Birdy wasn't sure if Walter's first injury was fatal, but the next could very well be.

Then the grip that was holding Birdy slackened, if only just a hair. But it was enough.

Birdy punched Joshua in the shoulder with all that she had left in her, causing his next shot to fire wide, missing Walter and giving Birdy enough room to twist out of his grip. Without waiting for him to recover, Birdy launched herself onto Joshua's back, wrapping her thin arms as tightly around his neck as possible. She threaded her legs around his waist and squeezed, as if she was a python killing its prey, or a jockey riding a horse bareback, or a lemon Mrs Hudson had purchased to make her glorious lemon squares, or whatever analogy her aching brain could conjure up, but whatever it was, she was not letting go. Because if she let go, they were as good as dead.

It was Joshua's turn to claw at Birdy, his fingers trying to pry her arms away from his throat. When he realised that it was a lost cause, he stepped backwards, ramming Birdy against the door frame. Still, she held tight, despite her throbbing back and her pounding head and her swollen throat. Birdy would not let go.

Joshua tried again. She felt him lurch forward. Then they were stumbling. Joshua had missed the wall. The two fell backwards through the open door and hit the ground hard. Birdy broke Joshua's fall, her head slamming into the ground. Her arms finally released his neck and he rolled off her. She could hear the thudding of a body tumbling down the steps that they somehow had gotten too close to.

And then there was silence.

Birdy's breath was ragged and she could taste blood. Tears were sliding down the side of her face and pooling in her ears. She wanted to get up to check on Walter. Maybe even look to see if Joshua was still alive after his trip down the steps. But all she could do was stare up at the crack in the ceiling that probably wasn't moving but certainly looked like it was.

A young woman's face appeared in front of her. Birdy could tell that the woman was speaking to her, but Birdy couldn't quite understand what she was saying. Did she know about Walter? Birdy tried to ask this. She tried to tell them that Walter has been shot and they should focus on him instead, but the woman didn't seemed to be interested in Walter.

"Miss, can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?" Her voice sounded loud and abrasive, but that could have been due to Birdy's pounding headache. The woman kept asking Birdy questions that she couldn't find the energy to respond to. The woman also didn't seem particularly keen on letting Birdy fall asleep, no matter how desperately she wanted to.

There was a single important thought that Birdy needed to say as her vision started to fade. Birdy reached up and grabbed the woman's face between her grimy and blood covered hands. "Tell Mrs Hudson I'll pay for any damages there are."

 **(A/N: I hope that you enjoyed the chapter! There are only two chapters left of this story. One of my Beta readers informed me that it was really jumpy, but I felt was the best way to describe what was happening; Birdy is stressed and on the edge of a panic attack and therefore having trouble comprehending what is going on. The narrative felt best to me if it wasn't super detailed. What do you think about it? Did the climax live up to your expectations? Leave me a comment to let me know! -CheckAlexa)**


	13. A Little Birdie Told Me

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

A Little Birdie Told Me

The first time Birdy regained consciousness, a man in a white coat was standing over her, poking at her neck. She could vaguely remember batting his hands away and grumbling angrily. This seemed to please the man for some reason, but Birdy didn't remain awake much longer to figure out why.

The second time Birdy woke up, she could hear a commotion somewhere nearby. It sounded like men were arguing. Or perhaps it was a pack of excitable golden retrievers? It was hard to tell. Or care really. Sleep was a much more attractive option to her than discerning the difference.

The final time Birdy awoke, a woman was sitting next to her, texting furiously on a mobile phone. The woman must have felt Birdy's eyes on her because she glanced up from the device suddenly and let out a shriek of surprise.

"Oh thank God," the woman gasped, throwing herself at Birdy, who found herself engulfed in a mass of thick brown curls.

"Hey, Mum," Birdy said, her drowsiness making it difficult to remember who the woman in front of her was. Where was she even? Why was she not at… Cook Street? No Baker Street. She lived on Baker Street. Why wasn't she at home? Had something happened? Birdy tried to push those thoughts out of her pounding head and allowed herself to be comforted, the scent of her mother much more preferable than the harsh smell of antiseptics.

Antiseptics? Was she in a hospital?

Birdy pushed her mother away and glanced around the small room. White walls, pink plastic pitcher on a nightstand, faded arm chair, beeping machines— yes she was definitely in a hospital room. But why?

No sooner had she thought the question than the memories from what had transpired at 221B began to return. Not rushing back all at one, mind you, like is often described in books, but slowly, like honey oozing off a dripper. Birdy was lucid enough to realise that she must have hit her head awfully hard back at Baker Street for her to make such an analogy.

"My head hurts," Birdy announced once her mother had released her. The sound that came out of her mouth surprised her, however— it was lower and rougher, as if she had a nasty cold. Her hands went to her neck, wondering if she could massage the growing ache away.

Mrs Mason pulled her daughter's hands from her throat. "I can imagine," she replied before reaching over to a bedside table and poured water into a plastic cup. "You have a concussion. And a bruised trachea, so no touching."

"How bad is the concussion?" Birdy asked, accepting the cup. She almost asked when she could dance again, but guessed that her mother would accuse her of not having her priorities straight.

Her mother pursed her lips and fixed her with a disapproving look, as if she knew exactly why her only daughter was asking the question. "It's minor. The doctor said that you should be able to return to physical activity within four weeks." At Birdy's sigh of disappointment, Mrs Mason rolled her eyes. "Honestly, it's only a month. The two of you can wait that long."

At first, Birdy thought her concussion was affecting her ability to understand speech, but the longer she tried to process her mother's words, the less they made any sense. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Mrs Mason gave an irritated little huff. "You and your fiancé. Whilst I'm sure the idea of 'I Survived' sex sounds rather appealing to you, it would be best to allow your brain to heal properly first." Birdy tried to interrupt her mother at that thought, but her mother seemed to be content to rant more. "Speak of, why did you not tell me you were engaged? I wasn't aware that you even had a boyfriend, never mind a bloody fiancé. It's quite inconsiderate to not tell your family. And don't you think that the two of you are moving awfully fast? You only moved to London for nine months ago after all." Mrs Mason's face drained of blood when she processed what she had said. "Nine months! Are you pregnant, Bridget? You are, aren't you, that's why you're getting married so suddenly, isn't it?"

"Mum, stop!" Birdy tried to shout, only to have her voice crack painfully and send her into a coughing fit. Her mother immediately quieted and leaned forward to rub Birdy's back. Birdy drank more water from the cup and tried to collect her thoughts, which felt more sluggish than she was used to. "Firstly, I'm not pregnant. Nor am I engaged. I don't even have a boyfriend. Why would you assume that I had a fiancé?"

Mrs Mason's eyes narrowed, as if she didn't believe a word her daughter was saying. Perhaps her memory had been effected during the fight? "He visited you earlier; got into a massive argument with the guards too. They wouldn't let him see you—said it was too big of a security hazard. They only let him in after I said it was alright."

Birdy felt her heart begin to accelerate. Had Joshua somehow made it through their altercation unharmed? Had he come to finish what he had started? Her mother had mentioned guards— had they tried to stop him, but had her mother let him in? "What was his name?"

"I can't remember. It was something unusual," Mrs Mason replied, growing more concerned at her daughter's behaviour. Should she call for a nurse?

The young woman gave an annoyed groan. "Was it Sherlock, by any chance?"

"That's the one!" Cried Mrs Mason triumphantly. "So you admit that you have a fiancé?"

"He's not my fiancé, Mum," Birdy explained, leaning back into the pillows and closing her eyes, suddenly exhausted. "Just my prick of a flatmate."

"But he said—"

"Yeah, he would," Birdy replied. She lifted a hand to rub at her eyes, which had begun to sting. "He probably thought it would get him in faster. I'm surprised he even bothered to show up."

"He looked rather concerned, actually," Mrs Mason said while she refilled the glass of water still clutched in Birdy's hand. "And then he threw out all of the flowers that had been sent to you. He's a rather strange young man, isn't he?"

Birdy paused and let her hand cover her closed eyes completely. A strange young man? Birdy gave a hearty laugh that made her throat hurt and her sides ache. "No, not strange. Just a bit different." And then she was crying. She didn't remember actually starting, but all of the sudden she was and she couldn't stop. Her mother asked if she was in pain, but Birdy couldn't find the words to explain what was wrong. Or what was right.

She cried because she was alive and less than 24 hours previously, she hadn't even known if that was a possibility. She cried because her friend was dead and she was alive. She didn't know if Walter was even alive and she was too terrified to ask, because what if he wasn't. Because Sherlock, her surly and erratic flatmate, had believed seeing flowers might upset her after the previous months' events. She was filled with overwhelming relief and an amount of immense grief that gripped at her heart and made it difficult to breathe. She didn't know how to let any of her thoughts out, so she just cried and cried until she didn't have any tears left to cry, and even then she still sobbed.

At some point, Mrs Mason took her daughter into her arms and pressed the young woman's face into her chest, just as she had done when her daughter was a child. She ran her fingers through Birdy's long wavy hair, working out any knots that had formed in the dark strands and massaging her scalp. Birdy's fiancé— no flatmate— had explained some of what had happened to her when he visited, and Mrs Mason was amazed it had taken so long for the tears to start. She was even more astonished that Birdy hadn't informed her of the situation in their bi-weekly Skype calls. Surely she could have figured out how to help her daughter?

Eventually the sobs turned into hiccups and Birdy managed to pull herself from her mother's warm embrace. "When can I use the computer again?"

"A week," Mrs Mason replied, tucking a lock of Birdy's hair behind her ear. "Not that you will have much time to use one, of course." She stood up and stretched her back, the stiff joints popping from disuse. "Now that you are awake, what do you want me to pick up for you?"

"What do you mean?" Birdy asked, scrubbing the remaining tears out of her eyes.

Mrs Mason gave her daughter a confused look. "Well, I was going to bring you a kit so you can clean up. Then your brothers can begin packing up your flat."

"Why?" Was Birdy's memory actually lousy, or had she missed an important conversation?

"Well surely you won't want to go back to that place after what has happened."

"You want me to move out of Baker Street?" Birdy asked.

"I want you to come home to Brixham, actually."

Birdy wanted to ask how she would commute to work every day. She briefly wondered if she even had a job still. What happened when your boss's nephew turned out to be a homicidal stalker? Was the company shut down? Were you allowed to quit without giving the proper amount of notice? Because Birdy wasn't sure if she wanted to even return to her office. Instead, all her concussed brain could provide was a measly, "But the Internet is crap."

Her mother rolled her eyes. "You'll survive."

Birdy shook her head, probably more violently than her doctor would have preferred. "I'm not leaving, Mum, and I'm not moving out of Baker Street."

Mrs Mason regarded Birdy pensively for a moment. It was often difficult to get her daughter to voice her opinion on anything. The last time she had, Birdy was informing her family that she was moving to London. But look how that had ended. Was living in the city that important to her? Or was there some other factor that her daughter had not disclosed. "Is it because of Sherlock?"

Birdy bit her lip and focused on her hands which were frantically twisting the bed sheets. "And John and Mary and Rosie. And Molly. And Mrs Hudson. And Walter. And me. I want to stay for me. London is where my life is now, Mum."

A knock at the door interrupted their argument and a man with greying hair and dark overcoat stepped into the room. D.I. Lestrade had arrived and was asking if he could take Birdy's statement. The women waved him into the room and he sat in the arm chair that Mrs Mason had been previously occupying.

"We will discuss this later, Bridget," Mrs Mason said before leaning down to press a kiss into her daughter's temple.

Bridget smiled up at her mother. "We can discuss it all you like, but I'm not changing my mind." Then she waved to her mother before turning to face the detective inspector.

She couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was, but Birdy was not the same nervous young woman that had left their seaside town nine months ago, Mrs Mason realised. Just as sweet and nervous as always, yes, but she was a little bit different too.

~A Little Birdy Told Me~

Before Birdy was released from the hospital, she was visited by wide variety of people. Molly came and they had a lovely chat about nothing substantial, which was a relief after Mycroft had made an appearance, offering her a job working for him to strengthen the cybersecurity of New Scotland Yard. He even gave the option of taking classes so that she could learn to hack mobile phones ("It would be the height of foolishness, lest we wish to have a reoccurrence of what transpired last evening"). Mrs Hudson brought her a tin of biscuits and a Get-Well-Soon card that her friends from dance had sent to the flat.

Birdy also was able to visit a recovering Walter, provided that she was accompanied by a police officer. Apparently, being a star witness to the most sensational murder trials of the year made you the subject of much media interest. She had been too afraid to even hold his free hand in the off chance that she could disrupt any of his stitches, despite both Walter and (to her astonishment) his boyfriend's assurances that she wouldn't hurt him.

"I was looking forward to being your Franz, Birdy," Walter sighed after telling her that the dance company would still be putting on its performance of _Coppélia_. According to Grace's family, there was no better way to honour her memory than to produce her favourite ballet. "But that bastard really buggered up my shoulder."

"When you get all healed up, maybe we can convince the artist director to let us finally do _The Firebird_ ," Birdy proposed to her friend.

Walter gave her a wide, lopsided grin. "I'm going to hold you to that, Birdy."

Birdy leaned over her friend's bed to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. "I would expect nothing less from you." At the end of the day, she was just thrilled that she could talk to him, but dancing with her friend was a wonderful feeling that she had never experienced before. She wasn't so selfish to wish that he would hurry up and recover, but she would be anxiously waiting for the day he was.

Truth was, Birdy had a lot of recovering to do herself. The concussion and bruised windpipe aside, it would take a long time to learn to cope with the trauma she had experienced. It still didn't stop her from telling the choreographer that she would be happy to dance as Swanhilda as soon as she was medically cleared; she texted her the minute she slid into the car Mycroft had sent for her. But a few extra sessions with her therapist wouldn't go amiss.

The first person Birdy sought out after she was released from hospital though, was an eccentric consulting detective who had oddly been absent after Birdy had woken up. She found him sitting at the kitchen table, eyes practically glued to his microscope. He had was still wearing the same clothes from the previous day and his usually perfectly coiffed curls were nearly (but not actually) in a state of disarray.

She thought about commenting about his appearance, but decided not to push Sherlock any farther than he obviously already was. "I'm going to go take a shower, Sherlock. If my brothers come to try and pick up my things, you have my permission to slam the door in their faces."

The consulting detective didn't look over at her. "You aren't moving out?"

"No," Birdy responded, walking into the lounge, only to find that it had already be cleaned up. "Breaking a lease is too much trouble."

"You do seem to acquire quite a lot of that, these days," Sherlock noted.

"No thanks to you, of course," Birdy replied. "Did you know?"

"That Walter O'Malley was never your stalker? Obviously."

Birdy moved to stand next to her flatmate and waited for him to look up at her. He was being stubborn, but Birdy was too. "Why didn't you say anything then? Why go on with letting me believe that you did?" Sherlock was silent, so Birdy raised her hand and placed it on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. "Sherlock? You can tell me, you know."

She knew that he would never though. That just wasn't who Sherlock Holmes was. And that was okay. "Well, whatever you were thinking the outcome of this fiasco was going to be, I can tell you that I'm not leaving." Birdy considered kissing her flatmate on the cheek, but knew that it would make him more uncomfortable than he already was. She chose instead to let her hand fall to her side and she stepped away. "You, my friend, are stuck with me."

Sherlock let out a snort of derision. "Given your track record with choosing friends, Bridget, being considered as such is something I do not strive to be," he said, sitting up and turning to face her at last.

Birdy arched an eyebrow. "Oh that's right, I heard you preferred to be my fiancé."

If she was hoping for Sherlock to blush in embarrassment, she never got it. The consulting detective simply rolled his eyes and went back to his microscope. But that was okay, because that's just who Sherlock was. An intelligent, unapologetic, sometimes socially inept, and usually arrogant man. And she really wouldn't have it any other way.

~A Little Birdy Told Me~

Two weeks after the Case of the Stalking Suitor was closed, John Watson heard a knock on his front door. It obviously wasn't Sherlock, because he could never be so much as bothered to knock whenever he came round. Figuring it was a package of some sort, John passed Rosie off to his wife and heaved himself out of his chair to answer it. When he opened the door, however, he found himself punched in the face.

John was quite lucky that Rosie could not yet speak, because Mary would be furious with him if their daughter ever repeated the stream of explatives he let out. The young woman who had been about to knock on his door again, dropped her fist and swooped down to try to help him, but he merely swatter her hands away.

"I really need to install a doorbell," John grumbled to his assailant.

"I'm really sorry, John," Birdy said, shifting her weight nervously. "We need to work out a new system. I know Mary said that I could come in whenever you were home, but what if the neighbours saw and thought that I was a burglar or something?"

"What can I do for you today, Birdy?" John asked before she could continue. He stepped aside to let her into the house, but Birdy shook her head.

"I'm not staying for long," she explained. She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope, which she handed to him. "These are for you and Mary."

John accepted the offering and opened it. Inside were to red and white tickets printed on card paper with the word _Coppélia_ embossed in gold letters.

"I didn't think that Rosie would be too interested in the ballet yet, but I wanted to invite you and Mary to my performance. You've both been so kind to me and you even helped Sherlock with the case, so I wanted to thank you somehow. I totally understand if you can't go or don't want to, ballet isn't for everyone, so I really won't be offended if—"

"Thank you, Birdy," John said with a grin. He had never been to a ballet performance, but it sounded like something Mary would like. "We'll make sure to get a sitter for the night."

Birdy gave him a blinding grin of her own. "I hope you'll like it! Besides," she said, pointing at the tickets in his hand, "A little birdie told me that they were really great seats!" She gave him a small wave before fluttering off down the street once again, her dark brown hair dancing behind her in the wind.

 **(A/N: I wasn't really sure about this chapter originally; I almost didn't include it because not much really happens plot wise. I decided to keep it, however, because I felt that it was really important for showing the development of different characters, particularly Birdy and Sherlock. What do you think? Only one more chapter before this story is complete. What do you think will happen? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! -CheckAlexa)**


	14. All's Well That Ends Well

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from BBC's_ Sherlock _or the collective works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's_ Sherlock Holmes _._

All's Well That Ends Well

"Have you seen Sherlock yet?" John asked, looking around for the dark haired man. The ballet hardly seemed like the sort of thing that Sherlock would enjoy, but he had thought that the consulting detective would at least show up for Birdy's performance. The two had been getting on well these days. Or, at least as well one could get on with Sherlock Holmes.

Mary paused the conversation she was having with Birdy's parents and began to look around as well. "Maybe he's gone in already?" But when the couple walked into the theatre and took their seats amongst Molly, Birdy's friend Walter, and of all people, Mycroft Holmes, it became clear that Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.

"If he doesn't show up soon, he'll miss the show," Mrs Hudson said, looking as if Sherlock was missing the birth of his child, rather than his flatmate's dance performance.

Greg Lestrade opened his mouth to give his opinion, but the overhead lights dimmed and whatever he was about to say was lost in a swell of music.

John leaned over to Mary and hissed, "We can't tell her that he didn't show up."

His wife nodded in agreement and the two turned to face the stage where Dr. Coppélius was beginning to display his life-size dancing doll. While it was a bit of a shock to John that there were no words spoken during the performance, the programme that was given to him paired with the running commentary that Mycroft supplied, it was easy enough to follow the plot. He found himself enraptured by the sequence of events unfolding, from the doctor placing the doll, Coppélia, in his window, to the town boys who fell in love with what they believed to be a human girl. By the time Birdy appeared on the stage, John was completely lost in the story.

Clad in a red tutu and pointe shoes, Birdy leapt across the stage with a surprising amount of agility and grace. The doctor in John was alarmed by the young woman's flexibility, and when she landed in some sort of splits on the tips of her toes, John gasped in both horror and awe. She was completely in control of her body— that much was obvious— but really, that much force on her joints? That had to be incredibly painful. How was she even able to walk? And were hips even supposed to be that flexible?

But as impressive as her dancing was, there was something about Birdy that was special (even John could see that); she was more than just a dancer. She was a performer. John watched in fascination as the shy girl he knew swirled around the stage. Birdy looked confident one moment, offended by Coppélia another, and playful the next. She wasn't just Bridget Mason dancing on that stage. She was Swanhilda.

 _What a fool Sherlock is for missing this_ , John thought as Birdy executed a series of spins that left him feeling almost dizzy.

Then the music changed and Birdy looked off to the side of the stage where a man in red tights had entered the stage. A shockingly familiar dark-haired man.

"Wait, is that Sherlock?"

 **(A/N: So that's it! What did you think? A little back story, if you are curious: when I first conceived the idea for this story back in October 2015, the one scene that came to my mind was this last little chapter. I could imagine Sherlock helping a dancer with a crime of some sort, and then to show her thanks, she allowed him to dance with her in a performance. It was originally going to be a Halloween themed one shot, where the dance theatre was going to be haunted and Sherlock was trying to prove that it wasn't. But then I made up the character Birdy, and it snowballed from there. Anyway, I sincerely want to thank everybody who has reviewed, favourite-d, followed, or read my story. I know that my updates can be erratic at the best of times, and it seemed like I had abandoned this story after a year of no updates. You all are seriously the best. If you enjoyed this story, there will be a continuation of Birdy and Sherlock's adventures called _Early Birdy Catches the Worm_. Until next time! CheckAlexa)**


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